MOMENT | "Your children need a model, not a martyr" Here's how to make the shift, with Glennon Doyle

0:07A responsible mother is not one slowly dying for her children, but showing them how to bravely live. I stopped being a martyr and started being a model. That is on another level. It's so fascinating, right? It's like I started figuring that language out. You know, I almost stayed in my broken marriage. I almost, I fell in love with Abby. And then I really almost just abandoned myself again. Yeah. Because I was so tamed to believe that a good mother just doesn't ever do anything to hurt her children. that a good mother, we have this thing that we say without thinking about it, because it actually doesn't make any sense that we need to put our children's needs above our own.

0:51Oh, I hate that. Yes. As if it's a hierarchy, as if our children's needs aren't exactly the same as ours, as if what we all need is not exactly the same, which is permission to live our truest, most beautiful lives. Right. That is what I need. And that is what my children need. and they will only get what they need if they see their mother giving herself permission to have that thing. It's such horseshit that it's one or the other. Glennon, I think the reason that passage is actually on my office wall, I think the reason is, is because I had a mother who martyred herself for 20 years in the name of my brother and I.

1:29And when she was at the peak of her own pain she said to me this she said you know I've given my whole life for you and it's my turn now and I said to myself inside I was really upset and I said to myself I never asked you to it's right and I feel so emotional saying that and I you know I think that's I never asked her to give up her life for me ever I think each daughter wants their mother to be free yes what I wanted was a mom of course of course what a burden martyr to motherhood it is a burden to pass on to children because not only I am in the same boat as you and what happens is that people who were raised by martyr mothers are fucked both ways because you spend your life feeling guilty that your mother gave her life for you without you asking.

2:32And then you spend the rest of your life trying desperately to undo the idea that you have to do that for your children because your mother did that for you. So the burden goes both ways. It's a terrible legacy to pass on to our children. It is why Carl Jung said the greatest burden we can hand to our children is the unlived life of a parent. It is something that we desperately need to untame ourselves from is that belief. The reason I used that language. And when this really came to me, I had to learn it myself. It was when I did almost decide just to stay in my broken marriage for my little girl who's so sensitive.

3:15And I was looking at her and she, I was doing her hair, I think, and something just snapped inside me. I just looked at her and I thought, Oh my God, I am staying in this marriage for her, but would I want this marriage for her? And if I would not want this marriage for my little girl, then why am I modeling bad love and calling that good mothering? And that is because I had this invisible poison root planted beneath me that said, good mothers are murders. That what a mother does, what a good mother does is just buries herself, just buries herself, her needs, her dreams, her humanity, her emotions, her, her very being.

3:58And she calls that love. And that is what she passes down to her children, which is so damaging and it never works, right? We are human beings. So mothers who martyr themselves always with zero exceptions turn out bitter. That is that conversation you had. I have given my whole life for you. I never asked you to. I never asked you to. They don't ask us for that burden. They do not ask for that burden.

4:32It's so insidious almost, isn't it? And I love that analogy that you use, you know, that toxic route. If there's someone listening who is thinking, I want to, I want to free myself I don't know where to start well I mean the first thing that you have to do I think to live from yourself is find yourself again yeah I mean I right I mean I what the hell did I know I didn't know what I wanted I didn't know who I was I didn't know what I dreamed of I didn't know how I truly felt I didn't know what I was capable of when you find yourself in that moment where you admit that you have some discontent and some longing, that's the first step.

5:15We're not even supposed to do that, right? We're not supposed to admit that we have something inside of ourselves that says, that is an ache, that is a longing, that is a hunch that it was supposed to be more beautiful than this, right? That my relationships were supposed to be more beautiful, that my career was supposed to be more beautiful, that my life was supposed to be more beautiful. So I think the first step is just admitting that discontent. I think that's such a beautiful thing. We're trained to believe that that means we're not grateful. Yes. But that means that our imagination has not given up on us yet.

5:48It means we are not dead yet. I love that line about imagination. I can't recall it off the top of my head. Yeah. I mean, that longing, that ache, that, that thing inside of ourselves, that's just, that's hope. Yeah. So I think we first admit that we have that. And then for me, it was just a very long process of, I mean, after I saw, after I saw that thing happen on the couch, I was just like, okay, I got to find myself again. I got to, I actually started locking myself in a closet for seven minutes a day because I had heard that there was this knowing inside of me that if I actually did figure out how to sink inside, dive inside, that there would be this magical self inside that I would find.

6:40And that annoyed the shit out of me because I was not, I didn't have a woo-woo bone in my body and it sounded very woo-woo to me, but you know, insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results and like taking Buzzfeed quizzes wasn't working. So So I just decided that maybe I would just try it. Maybe I would just give it a try. What did I have to lose? And so the kids would go off to school and I would promise myself seven minutes, seven minutes. And I would sit there on the floor. And at first it was just a complete nightmare. I mean, the reason people don't get still is because it's the hardest thing on earth.

7:18Okay. Like almost anything is easier than returning to yourself and turning off all of the voices on the outside and sitting with yourself. because inside the stillness is the truth, right? And the truth is scary as all hell. Like inside stillness, when you turn inside yourself is all of the pain and the things that haven't healed yet and the things we've been avoiding. It's like, it's like the settling of the snow globe. And we do all of those things, the busyness and the distraction to keep ourselves from having to face what's in the middle of the snow globe. but nothing beautiful happens in our lives if we don't face what's inside the snow globe right so at first it was just seven minutes of hell you know I would spend most of it like trying to figure out how I might rearrange my pantry like I have never rearranged my pantry in my entire life but suddenly when I sat on the floor it became of utmost importance and then after a while this thing happened which is that I found the thing that is inside of us that is always telling the truth, right?

8:26It's like we keep the voices on the outside so loud because the voice inside only speaks in a whisper, but it never stops. It's always there if we return to it and if we practice returning to it. And I hesitate to even call it a whisper because I've never once heard it in a voice really, except actually the moment I met Abby. Usually it's just like a directional pull kind of, it's like a nudge that kind of nudges me towards the next right thing. That's all it is. And I've just found that I can live my entire life just sinking inside, blocking the voices out, outside, and just doing the next right thing that the nudge points me towards.