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How Bestselling Author Glennon Doyle Melton Is Healing Others By Healing Herself

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Bestselling author Glennon Doyle Melton spent 20 years of her life battling bulimia , alcoholism , and drug addiction. In 2002, she became pregnant, and she decided to get sober. Since then, Melton has started an award-winning blog and written two New York Times bestsellers , including her newest book, Love Warrior , a memoir about her journey of self-discovery after the breakdown of her marriage. She's passionate about healing others by inspiring them to speak honestly about their experiences and their fears—and she leads by example, always ready to share her own story.

Melton's latest endeavor is the Together Live tour , an event that's all about inspiring and empowering women around the country. Melton co-created the tour with William Morris Endeavor Entertainment board member Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, yoga teacher and activist Seane Corn, and community organizer and filmmaker Valarie Kaur—all with the mission of uniting women through honesty (look out for Kaur’s moving essay in our November issue, on newsstands later this month). The national tour is stopping in six cities, and features appearances from celebrities like Sophia Bush and Alicia Keys .

Here, Melton shares her advice for young women and reveals what inspired her to get involved with Together Live .

"I was trying to stay sober. I started going to recovery meetings and fell in love with the brutal honesty that was happening. I thought, 'If this is how people stay sober and survive, why can't we do this everywhere?' So I decided to start blogging, and it grew organically from there."

"One of the reasons we stay so alone in our lives is because we're ashamed to talk about the hard stuff. It's as simple as that. We're all in pain in different ways, and we don't get the help we need because we're too ashamed to talk about the pain. It's not the pain that takes us out of the game—it's the shame. I was lucky enough to know from recovery that talking about hard stuff in respectful ways works. So I'm using the same strategy to heal the world that I did to heal myself: truth telling."

"It's really busy, and it's confusing sometimes. I keep reminding myself of something my dad says: 'When you get to the party, you dance with the one who brought you.' So I'm focusing on truth telling and service. You go on the road, you tell the truth, and you serve the ones you see."

"This is the busiest I've ever been. But the one thing that heals me is water . Whether it's a glass of water, sweat from the elliptical, a good cry (which I do about every other day), or the Gulf of Mexico—I get some water involved in my life whenever I need a break."

"Figure out what breaks your heart. We all have this misunderstanding about heartbreak , which is we think we should avoid it. But what I think is that heartache is a clue toward the work we're supposed to be doing in the world. What breaks each person's heart is different—be it racial injustice, war, or animals. And when you figure out what it is that breaks yours, go toward it. That's where you'll find the people doing world healing work. I really think all we're here for is purpose and connection, so follow your heartbreak."

"I'm taking my own advice about following heartbreak. Book tours are super hard for me as a raging introvert. I love humanity, but actual humans are hard for me. So something like a book tour—where I'm constantly on the road—scares the hell out of me. But I decided to use this time to do good work—that's how I'd survive. Jennifer and I got together and thought, 'What does the world need right now?' And we decided that in this heated, divisive time in our country, we needed a movement of women who were leading with love and strength. We want to celebrate differences . What I've learned is that if you want peace, all you really have to do is introduce people to each other. The closer you get to people who are different than you, the more you learn that we're all same."

Hear from Melton and several other incredible women on the Together Live tour this October. The tour has already traveled to Portland, and is heading to Los Angeles, Chicago, Brooklyn, Atlanta, and Denver in the coming weeks. Click here to buy tickets and to learn more about the tour. You can also join the Together Live community by downloading the free app .

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Episode Transcripts >

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, 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.

Guests who have discussed their hard things with us include Vice President Kamala Harris, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Tracee Ellis Ross, Oprah Winfrey, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, Tarana Burke, Megan Rapinoe, Sonya Renee Taylor, Shannon Watts, Ashley C. Ford, Dr. Brené Brown, Kelly Clarkson, Billie Jean King, Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Paulson, Tricia Hersey, Kerry Washington, Alex Morgan, Natalie Portman, Brandi Carlile, Christen Press, Gabrielle Union, Ocean Vuong, Melissa McCarthy, Chanel Miller, Dr. Yaba Blay, Cheryl Strayed, and many more.

In its debut year, We Can Do Hard Things was named the #1 Top New Show on Apple Podcasts Best Of list. It was also named one of Amazon’s Best Podcasts, one of Stitcher’s Top Shows, and it won the 2022 Gracie Award in the “Lifestyle Podcast” category. We Can Do Hard Things was a 2022 Webby Honoree for “Best Host” and “Arts & Culture” and a 2023 Webby Nominee in the “Best Co-Hosts” and “Health, Wellness & Lifestyle” categories. It won the 2022 iHeartRadio award for “Best Advice/Inspirational Podcast,” as well as a top spot in every 2022 Apple award for which it was eligible. The Hollywood Reporter named Glennon Doyle one of “The 40(ish) Most Powerful People in Podcasting” in 2022, and all three hosts – Glennon, Abby, and Amanda – among “The 40(ish) Most Important People in Podcasting in 2023”.

The We Can Do Hard Things podcast garners several million listeners each week. You can read a bit more about the impact of the show, and our extraordinarily engaged Pod Squad, in this August 2022 Washington Post feature.

We love hearing from you, and we answer some of your questions on the podcast, so please leave your thoughts and questions in a voicemail at 747-200-5307 , and you may be on an upcoming episode.

We can ask hard questions!

[email protected] All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2023 Glennon Doyle

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Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach Share Their California Home

“The other day, our youngest had friends over,” says Glennon Doyle, the best-selling author and popular podcast host. “And I overheard one of them say, ‘Your house smells so good, and it’s so cozy,’ and I was like, I could die after that. I was so happy.” Doyle’s wife, Abby Wambach, a soccer deity who also happens to be a best-selling author and popular podcast host, clarifies “Yeah, it smells like candles and incense.” 

It has been about a year since Doyle and Wambach, who married in 2017, made the move from their house in Naples, Florida, to this new ambrosial home, a great American beach house perched above a majestic sweep of Los Angeles coastline. “Moving to this house was more of a marriage move for us,” says Doyle, “Like starting over, because our last house was hilarious. It was like, Okay, the living room is Abby, the kitchen is Glennon.” Wambach explains, “We had moved the last two homes that we had lived in into one Florida home. We just combined all of our furniture to make it work. But because we moved across the country to this one, we had to leave most of that furniture behind.” Doyle affirms, “We had to find a kind of third way.”

That third way was ultimately orchestrated by interior designer Kate Lester, who had “sort of inherited” the couple as clients when the two women fell in love with the home on a brief house-hunting jaunt to California. The family’s initial search was predicated on three things: to have space; to be within walking distance of the home of Doyle’s ex-husband, Craig Melton; and to be close to the water. “I tell Abby, there’s something about looking out and being able to see the Pacific Ocean,” says Doyle. “I think to myself, Well, I have gone as far as I can go.”

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With options narrowed, their real estate agent showed them a house that was in the process of being built and that would go on the market when completed. Explains Lester, who had been working on the project from the get-go, “The house had been a super high-end build for a client who lived in Singapore and who was going to spend one month of the year here. But, it turned out, he had a life-changing event, and he had to sell it. I shared with them that there’s a vision to this house: to be this great modern coastal place where you’re going to have good energy, that’s going to be fun and fabulous. And they were like, Okay, cool. So let’s keep going.” 

“We were so lucky,” says Doyle. “It was new, but it was also half done. There weren’t a lot of choices left to make. Kate had already made so many of the decisions, and the vibe was so cozy. It was just perfect for us.” And while the super-couple did make some changes to the initial design—they added a podcast studio, for instance—it was the designer who influenced them. Says Wambach, “If I were to have my complete say around this home, I may have chosen less color. But Kate Lester has changed me with some of her choices. I can see what it looks like with some more color. And I can feel that the intention of this home is joy, love, and comfort.” 

Doyle suggests a different color theory. “I think the reason there’s a lot of color in the house is really because Abby let me be the boss of the colors in the house. I love color. I mean, this house is colorful in more ways than one: There’s children everywhere, there’s dogs everywhere, there’s an ex-husband everywhere. We allowed a lot of color,” she says. “But it’s still, like, all earthy colors, so it doesn’t feel like a rainbow. Even though we are big freaking fans of rainbows.”

The most appreciable colors in the house, however, may result less from any particular design choice and more from the couple’s shared passion: reading. Vibrant book spines domino across shelves and flat surfaces everywhere one turns. “Rooms without books feel panicky to me,” says Doyle. “And thank God Abby feels the same way, or this house would be hard for her.” 

Adds Doyle, “There were a lot of moments that I felt like I was falling deeper and deeper in love with Abby, and one of them is when she had had her books shipped from Portland. For some reason, I was alone and opening her boxes, and I was so scared. Like, if I look at your bookshelf, and it doesn’t have the right books that are important, I will have a real problem. I opened her books, one by one, and they were all the books that I love, all the books that I had. That was a really big moment.”

‘Untamed’ Author Glennon Doyle to Speak at UC Davis

Symposium also includes alumni panel on women, philanthropy and leadership.

• by Ashley Han
• September 27, 2022

Glennon Doyle, activist and bestselling author of Untamed and other works, is coming to the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Davis, headlining a public symposium on women, philanthropy and leadership, 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16. Tickets are on sale now.

AT A GLANCE

• WHAT: A Conversation With Glennon Doyle
• WHERE: Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts
• WHEN: 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16
• ADMISSION: $25-$65
• Phone: 530-754-2787
• In person: noon-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday

In addition to a one-on-one conversation with Doyle, the event sponsored by UC Davis Women & Philanthropy will feature a panel discussion with three notable UC Davis alumnae: Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, chief justice of the California Supreme Court; Diane Bryant, information technology executive; and Adriana Gascoigne, founder of Girls in Tech.

Women & Philanthropy, which aims to ignite connections, nurture curiosity and generate contribution for good, will announce the winner of the organization’s inaugural Women & Philanthropy Impact Award.   The award, honoring a UC Davis faculty or staff member for contributions to the advancement of women, exemplary leadership, and significant impact on local and global university communities, comes with a $25,000 prize to be directed to the UC Davis fund of the winner’s choice. 

Doyle’s impact

Doyle, who strives to support and empower women to be themselves, has written two No. 1 New York Times bestsellers, Untamed and Love Warrior ; hosts the We Can Do Hard Things podcast; and is the founder and president of Together Rising, an all-woman-led nonprofit organization that has revolutionized grassroots philanthropy — raising more than $40 million for women, families and children in crisis. The UC Davis School of Law is one of Together Rising’s beneficiaries.

Her other works include New York Times bestseller Carry On, Warrior and Get Untamed: The Journal. She shares personal stories illustrating the transformative power of women working together to make an impact.

Wisdom of Women panel

The alumni panelists are:

• Diane Bryant ’85, a global technology leader in the semiconductor industry, cloud computing services, artificial intelligence applications, and technology-based health care solutions. She is the chair and CEO of NovaSignal and was named one of Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2015. She serves on the Chancellor’s Board of Advisors and the College of Engineering’s Dean’s Executive Committee.
• Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye ’80, J.D. ’84, chief justice of the California Supreme Court for 11 years, one of the country’s leading advocates for equal access to justice, civic education, and reform of court-funding models and procedures. The state’s 28th chief justice, she is the first person of color and the second woman to hold the position. She has announced she will retire at the end of her term, in January.  
• Adriana Gascoigne ’00, the founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, or GIT, a nonprofit organization that empowers, educates and engages women in the tech industry. She is also an author and a board member of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program. CNET named her one of the 20 most influential Latinos in technology in 2018.

Event moderator Pamela Wu is the director of Public Affairs and Marketing for UC Davis Health. Her career spans the fields of broadcast journalism, public relations and communications training. In 2021, she received an Emmy award in the category of health/medical long-form content. She continues her work in broadcasting as a substitute host for Capital Public Radio, Sacramento’s NPR station.

Women & Philanthropy

The Doyle program is part of Women & Philanthropy’s Wisdom of Women series. The Women & Philanthropy initiative is changing the landscape of philanthropy by celebrating and recognizing women’s generosity and their role in improving communities and the world.

“We are building a community of women who want to contribute their time, talent, experience and financial gifts to help create a better world,” said Margaret Lapiz ’89, a founding member of the Women & Philanthropy Advisory Council and a member of the UC Davis Foundation Board. “Women & Philanthropy has the potential to be the most visible demonstration of how to grow an inclusive culture of philanthropy throughout UC Davis.”

Lapiz added that she is especially looking forward to honoring the winner of the Women & Philanthropy Impact Award.

“I see the impact award as a source of inspiration for us all,” she said. “With it, we’ll pave the way for future leaders and honor how others have paved the way for all of us.”

Ashley Han is a communications specialist in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations.

Media Resources

Media Contact:

• Betsy Towner Levine, Development and Alumni Relations, 530-752-9693, [email protected]

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Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach's Relationship Timeline

Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach met in 2016 and married a year later

Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle have built a blended family together.

Since the retired American soccer player met the best-selling author at one of her book events, the couple have been inseparable. At the time, they were both married to other people — Wambach to fellow athlete Sarah Huffman and Doyle to her husband of 14 years, Craig Melton, whom she wrote about in her books.

"The decision about whether to stay in my broken marriage or go with Abby didn't feel just about love," the Untamed writer told PEOPLE in May 2020. "It was about am I going to abandon myself or be wild enough to abandon everyone's expectations of me?"

The Soccer Hall of Famer was also confronted with the opportunity to change and took it.

"Before I met Glennon, I was living fast and hard," she said.

When Wambach dove headfirst into a new life with Doyle, she became a "bonus mom" to Doyle's three kids — Chase, Tish and Amma — who she said have completely changed her life and "taught [her] everything."

A true blended family, the duo remains extremely close with Doyle's ex-husband.

"We have family dinners together — all six of us — and Abby cooks. (She is an AMAZING chef because Jesus loves me)," Doyle wrote on her Facebook page in 2016. "We go to the kids' school parties together. Our children are loved. So loved."

From their first meeting to their wedding, here's everything to know about Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle's relationship.

2016: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach meet at a book event

Wambach and Doyle were strangers when they met at the launch of Doyle's Love Warrior book event in Chicago, but Doyle felt the urge to greet her like an old friend.

"Just everything in me was like, there she is. Like just an absolute and total recognizing, even though I've never seen her before," Doyle said during their joint interview on the What's Her Story With Sam & Amy podcast in September 2020. "Suddenly, I come to consciousness, and I'm standing up like this at the table with my arms thrown open towards the door."

Wambach was intrigued by the "weird woman" celebrating her arrival.

She added, "I finally get to Glennon and say hello. And then I sat down in my seat … I was next to this children's book writer, feeling like, well, I want to sit next to her [Glennon] for some reason."

The two chatted briefly before Doyle's speech, and that's all it took to form a bond.

"In the literally three minutes it took us to get from the back room dinner table to the stage, I told Glen my whole story, and she touched my arm, and for sure that was like a lightning bolt for me," Wambach said. "I think my heart and my soul knew way, way sooner than my brain."

The duo began emailing, and soon after, Doyle announced her divorce from her husband.

"It was the only thing that made sense at the time," Wambach said before adding, "Like thinking back on it now, I'm like, we were probably literally insane. Like our brains were so lit up that we couldn't make the right decisions based on external expectations. We were only operating on a soul level."

November 13, 2016: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach make their relationship public

After Doyle announced her divorce and Wambach ended her three-year marriage in 2016, the couple revealed their romance to the world.

"Feels like the world could use all the love it can get right now. So today, I'm going to share with you my new love," Doyle wrote on Facebook alongside a photo with Wambach. "Her name is Abby. You might recognize her from soccer."

Doyle praised her new girlfriend's "sensitive and kind" nature and revealed they were already very serious — her three kids and ex-husband had already come to know and love Wambach.

"The kids call her an M&M because she looks tough on the outside, but inside, she's really mushy and sweet," Doyle continued on Facebook. "She's unwaveringly good to Craig, to the kids, to Sister and to all my people."

She added, "And oh my God, she is so good to me. She loves me for all the things I've always wanted to be loved for. She's just my favorite. My person … I get it now. I get it. I am in love. And I'm really, deeply happy."

February 18, 2017: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach announce their engagement

In February 2017, Doyle first broke the news that the pair were engaged, sharing two black-and-white photos of their ringed fingers on Facebook . Doyle's featured a large emerald cut diamond, and Wambach's a more understated diamond band.

"Abby and I decided to hold hands forever ," she captioned the image. "Love Wins."

Wambach posted the same photo on Instagram a day later with the simple caption, "Happy," and the hashtag "#iseethemoonnow."

May 14, 2017: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach get married

On May 14, 2017, Doyle and Wambach tied the knot in front of family and friends. Doyle posted a photo of the two kissing on their big day. Wambach donned a red velvet suit jacket, while Doyle wore a jewel-encrusted gown. In another since-deleted photo shared by Doyle the next day, Wambach rocked a black hoodie inscribed with the words "Christian Mommy Blogger's Wife."

"My beloveds — please never give up on love," Doyle captioned the photo. "Life could surprise the hell out of you. Trust me — you might just wake up one morning and find yourself smackdab in the middle of heaven. I love my wife. LOVE WINS."

For the reception, Doyle changed into a short white party dress , and Wambach rocked a head-to-toe white outfit.

July 12, 2017: Glennon Doyle and family support Abby Wambach at the ESPYs

Doyle and her three kids joined Wambach at the ESPY Awards in July 2017. Wambach and Doyle's youngest child Amma even wore matching black T-shirts on the red carpet: Wambach's shirt read "be kind" while Amma's read "be brave." Doyle later shared a photo of the family on Instagram , informing her followers that the uplifting tees benefitted their nonprofit organization, Together Rising.

She also posted an image of Wambach and her children from the ESPYs posing with Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles and Laurie Hernandez .

September 18, 2017: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach go on a speaking tour

Doyle and Wambach teamed up to speak at Hello Sunshine x Together Live, an event curated by Reese Witherspoon 's media company. Dubbed a "love rally" — featuring celebrity guests like Alicia Keys , Sophia Bush , Connie Britton and other influential women and authors — the couple kicked off the 10-city tour across the U.S. in September 2017 to share stories of inspiration and sisterhood.

"We will bring badass earth-shakers, hilarious heroines and revolutionary storytellers to the stage and audience," Doyle captioned the announcement on Instagram in July 2017. "Together, we will reclaim our shared humanity, overcome fear and division, choose love and ignite change."

April 2019: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach share the secret to their marriage

In a 2019 interview with WSJ. Magazine , the couple opened up about their nearly two-year marriage and how communication and passion were the keys to a happy and fulfilling partnership.

"To be in a relationship with another woman, there's a ton of talking all the time ," Wambach told the outlet. "We're so passionate about the work that we're trying to accomplish. We're trying to solve for big problems, we want equality, and it calls for a lot of discussion between us."

Doyle added, "I think that's one of the reasons we fell in love with each other. We were doing similar work before we even met, and it was like, 'Whoa, you're like the business-slash-sports version of me' … We have so many of the same beliefs and goals."

June 24, 2019: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach cheer on Team USA at the World Cup

Doyle and her kids showed up to support Wambach's former team at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup . The blended family wore matching Team USA jerseys at the round 16 match against Spain in Reims, France.

Doyle even posted a snap on Instagram of the two, captured from the televised game , along with other photos supporting star forward Megan Rapinoe . Team USA went on to win the World Cup that year.

May 28, 2020: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach open up about co-parenting with Doyle's ex-husband

When it comes to their blended family and marriage, Doyle and Wambach's focus is prioritizing the children, the couple revealed to PEOPLE in May 2020.

"Craig, Glennon and I make a choice every day. We ensure that the kids' lives are as least disrupted as possible," Wambach said.

Wambach also shared that she's "in constant communication" with her wife's ex, and that she and Melton even coached daughter Tish's soccer team together.

"Craig gave me the biggest gift in allowing me into the family dynamic," she said. "He gave the kids permission to love me."

Although Wambach loves being a "bonus mom" for the kids, she admitted there was an adjustment process in learning to be a parent.

"I didn't know how to be one," Wambach explained. "I had the instinct, but I grew up in a very different family than the one that Glennon and I are creating."

March 22, 2021: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach share a powerful photo kissing in Vatican City

One week after the Catholic Church officially announced they would not bless same-sex unions , Doyle shared a photo kissing her wife in Vatican City. In the caption, Doyle recalled how she felt "queasy" seeing the "emphasis on worldly power and riches" at the iconic religious capital she and Wambach visited years ago. Still, the pair opted to capture a significant moment in a chapel.

" We decided to kiss there , as our joyful loving resistance," she wrote. "At that moment, Chase took this picture of us. As we kissed and our boy snapped the shot, a ray of light sliced through the ceiling toward us."

April 2021: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach's dishwasher debate goes viral

The couple showed off their silly side in April 2021 when Wambach posted a video on Instagram of the disorganized way Doyle loaded the dishwasher. The clip immediately sparked debate across the internet and even gained the attention of Kelly Clarkson , who asked Doyle about it during her June 2021 interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show .

"She is so controlling about the dishwasher, Kelly, sometimes I load it, and she will reload it when I leave the room so it's more organized," Doyle said. "I don't know what people's problem is about doing that; I'm not sure."

Clarkson, however, took Wambach's side in the debate.

"Just to let you know, I have found her doppelgänger, and that is me — I am Abby," Clarkson said. "I am the one, I'm like, 'Just stop, I'll do it.' "

May 11, 2021: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach launch a podcast together

In May 2021, the couple launched their podcast, We Can Do Hard Things, with Doyle's sister Amanda . The three have interviewed guests like Sarah Paulson , Brandi Carlile , Brené Brown , Billie Jean King and Chanel Miller , while tackling difficult topics like Doyle's eating disorder and bulimia relapse.

"I'm not trying to be shiny. We're using this podcast — we call it We Can Do Hard Things for a reason," Doyle told PEOPLE in May 2022 in honor of the podcast's one-year anniversary. " We're trying to actually help us all feel a little bit less alone."

In an effort to maintain full honesty, the author said she couldn't help but open up about her relapse.

"It was hard for me not to," she added of her decision to tell listeners that she had started  purging and obsessively weighing  herself again. "I just don't do well when there's something important that I'm holding back. I think it comes from my recovery from alcoholism."

October 2021: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach spend time at wellness retreat after their son leaves for college

Wambach was Doyle's biggest supporter as she dealt with their son, Chase, moving out and going to college.

"The woman whose entire life strategy is FEEL IT ALL decided that the only way to survive our first-born leaving home was to REFUSE to feel it," Wambach captioned a photo of Doyle . "She told me her plan was going to 'eat and read' her feelings. She sat on the couch for three days with a stack of books and a five-pound tub of licorice."

Wambach continued, "I felt scared so I begged her to let me take her away to our favorite place — just for a couple of days — to feel her feelings. Then she could go back to not feeling."

The couple jetted off to Miraval Arizona Resort & Spa, a wellness retreat in Tucson, where they enjoyed some sunshine and took a yoga class while listening to Dave Matthews .

"She looked at me and smiled, and I knew she'd be okay," Wambach added. "I love you, G. You and me together — we can do anything."

November 7, 2021: Glennon Doyle cheers on Abby Wambach at her first New York City Marathon

In 2021, Wambach achieved another goal: running the New York City Marathon for the first time.

"What a day!!!!! NYC marathon was really magic. I'm so proud of us and so glad it's done and I can check it off my bucket list," Wambach captioned a series of images on Instagram from the marathon.

Wambach finished with an impressive time of 3:44:25, and a proud Doyle cheered her on from the sidelines.

"My wife ran a marathon today. The whole damn thing," Doyle wrote on Instagram alongside a photo high-fiving Wambach . "You never stop stunning me. Can we please rest now for like a year I'm really dehydrated."

February 14, 2022: Abby Wambach proposes (again!) to Glennon Doyle on Valentine's Day

Wambach proved how strong her love was on Valentine's Day 2022 when she asked Doyle to renew their vows.

"I don't do everything right by a long shot, but I do try to seize every opportunity to celebrate love, because I waited a long time for it. So I asked our family to be part of my rooftop re-proposal to @glennondoyle (underneath the twinkly lights she's always wanted)," she captioned a sweet photo of the moment .

She also revealed their daughter Tish played their wedding song, and the rest of the family sang along before Wambach got down on one knee.

"I asked if she'd renew our vows in May. She said YES (again)," Wambach wrote. "That's all we can ask of ourselves and our partners along this wild ride — that we just keep saying yes."

February 28, 2022: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach raise more than $1 million for Ukrainian families

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Doyle and Wambach announced in February 2022 that their nonprofit, Together Rising, would initially pledge $250,000 to help people who needed "medical supplies, food, and cash, as well as medical and psychological support."

Just three days later, the organization revealed it had raised more than $1 million in contributions.

May 11, 2022: Abby Wambach opens up about motherhood with Glennon Doyle

In May 2022, Wambach opened up about her decision not to have a biological child.

"Early on in our relationship and marriage, I was considering having a biological child of my own," Wambach told Vanity Fair . "As time went on, I realized that these three children were enough for me. I didn't need to do it myself in order to feel like a mother."

She added, "I'm married into these children's lives. I don't have any legal binding to them, no blood relation. So in some ways, they have to choose if they opt into this love. I ask Glennon all the time, 'Do you feel jealous that our kids choose to love me and they have to love you?' "

June 12, 2022: Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach invite Architectural Digest into their home

Doyle noted on Instagram in 2022 that she and Wambach became "the first queer women pictured in Architectural Digest in bed" when they welcomed the outlet into their new home in California. The family, including their dogs, previously lived in Naples, Florida.

"As you likely know, I'm obsessed with home," Doyle captioned photos of the interior, rooftop and bedroom. "Home is my favorite. I identify as home-sexual. So, it was kind of intimidating to invite the world into my safe, happy place. I'm glad we did though."

January 3, 2023: Glennon Doyle reveals anorexia diagnosis on podcast with Abby Wambach

On the first episode of We Can Do Hard Things in 2023, Doyle revealed she was diagnosed with anorexia after years of believing she was bulimic.

"The shift of my identity as bulimic, bulimic, bulimic… anorexia is a totally different thing," she shared. " It's like a different religion . It's a different identity. It's a different way of thinking, It's so confusing, and it shook me very deeply. And I did not believe it."

Doyle also shared that Wambach confronted her in their kitchen and said, "I can't do this for you," seemingly suggesting that Doyle would need to find the strength within herself to heal.

"This was a hard thing for me to say," Wambach explained to her wife on the podcast. "I knew I had to say it — it had to be out loud — because you needed to take complete ownership over this process."

If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or go to NationalEatingDisorders.org .

August 2023: Abby Wambach talks about watching soccer with Glennon Doyle

While speaking with PEOPLE at the premiere of  We Are Ayenda , Wambach touched on how she's had some trouble getting her wife to understand her sport .

Doyle has documented her soccer struggles on social media, most recently sharing her confusion while watching the  U.S. Women’s National Team’s game against Portugal . Despite her best efforts to explain the sport to Doyle using “metaphor and analogy," Wambach says she hasn't been able to help her other half completely grasp the ins and outs.

"And I do my best but she [has gone] up to me every time [asking questions]… since the World Cup started," Wambach said, noting that despite her wife's limited soccer knowledge, Doyle is still “the best."

"I love her," she added.

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Sarah Paulson Is Set to Star as Glennon Doyle in the Untamed TV Series

The two made a joint announcement on an episode of Doyle's podcast We Can Do Hard Things .

Fans of star actress Sarah Paulson now have a new television series to eagerly anticipate.

Back in August 2020, Deadline reported that Glennon Doyle's memoir Untamed was set to be adapted into a television series by J.J. Abrams's Bad Robot production company -- Adele recently credited the book as being behind her newfound confidence. In Untamed , Doyle shares her story of meeting and falling in love with her wife, soccer super star Abby Wambach; of following her heart and upending her life; and about finding her truest self. She tells it all with humor and heart, and it's the kind of part actors dream of. Now we know who'll be stepping into the role of Doyle for the series: Paulson.

As Doyle shared on the podcast We Can Do Hard Things , Paulson wasn't only her top pick but her only pick. "I, in my little sweaty heart, have known the person that I needed the universe to provide to play me in the Untamed show that I have always known in my little sweaty heart. One shot, one shot for this human," she said, adding, "Sarah Paulson comes once in a freaking lifetime."

See on Instagram

"Dear Sarah, everything is hard right now," the letter began. "The way I love the world when things are hard is to keep creating beautiful, true, hopeful things. And the way I love myself is to co-create those things with beautiful, true, hopeful people. To that end, I have forever worshiped you as an actor. I understand that this is not a unique experience as the entire world worships you as an actor. I will tell you this. I never imagined [I'd] dare to ask you to play me." Doyle went on to compliment Paulson -- the actor and the person -- and made a case for why she'd be the perfect fit for the role.

Paulson was beyond moved. "OK, let me be frank. I have never gotten an email that made me sweat and cry, and sweat and laugh, and sweat and cry and sweat, whilst, that's right, whilst making my hands shake a little. Also, did I mention the sweating?" wrote Paulson. "Here's what I know. I revere you top to toe." In other words, she was in.

There is no confirmation on who is to portray Wambach. On Twitter, actress Gillian Anderson jokingly said she was in for the role when asked by fans. Doyle responded to thw tweet with "we love you."

\u201cdeceased. we love you. @GillianA .. especially in your soccer costume\u201d — Glennon Doyle (@Glennon Doyle) 1644347415

Untamed is Doyle's third memoir, following Carry On, Warrior , and Love Warrior , all three of which are New York Times Best-Sellers.

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Glennon Doyle's memoir 'Untamed' had helped me embrace some major changes in my life — here's why I recommend reading it, even though it's been years since it first published

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• " Untamed " is Glennon Doyle's third memoir and has been a bestseller since it came out in 2020.
• It reads like a self-help book and I still think of Doyle's advice often.
• Here are three reasons I recommend this book, from Doyle's writing style to the advice itself.

I enjoy reading self-help books and memoirs, but very few have stayed with me after I turned the final pageー until I read " Untamed " by Glennon Doyle. 

My long-anticipated library copy of "Untamed" came to me at a very uncertain time of my life. I was just months away from changing careers, moving across the country, and marrying my spouse. It felt like I was starting over and to be honest, I was terrified. 

I opened "Untamed" without knowing who Glennon Doyle was or knowing what this book would hold for me. What I found was the unflinchingly honest story of a woman allowing herself to be free, told through deeply personal anecdotes and snippets of wisdom that I still think about today. 

"Untamed" was released in March 2020 but is still ranking on Amazon's bestseller list, was one of the most-read books on Goodreads last year, and is one of Libro.fm's bestselling audiobooks of all time. None of this comes as a surprise to me, as I've gone back to this memoir many times since I first read it, highlighting new passages each time.

Here are three reasons "Untamed" has resonated with me for years: 

1. it's more of a self-help book than a memoir. .

The first part of "Untamed" makes a case for how we are born into society's metaphorical cages that teach us how to act, what to say, who to love, and who to be. 

We are taught to be quiet, stifle our emotions, dream realistically, and fit the status quo, but many of these cages keep us from ever truly knowing ourselves or living freely, offering instead a life of elusive discontent that we avoid by drinking, convincing ourselves that "good enough" is good enough, or simply never looking straight at our problems because they're too much to bear. 

In part two, Doyle offers four keys to unlocking these cages: Feel It All, Be Still And Know, Dare to Imagine, and Build and Burn. These essentially translate to: Feelings are meant to be felt, you need to trust yourself, discontent is a sign you're in the wrong place, and new construction can only come from deconstruction. 

As Doyle identifies these keys, it's as if she's putting words to all the fears we have about what lies just beyond our reach, whether that's sobriety or a new career or leaving a stable but dissatisfying relationship.

Change is hard, full of unknowns, and absolutely scary. Reading about these cages and the keys helped me identify exactly what was challenging about my upcoming changes. Leaving my career in the military to pursue writing meant listening to my heart when it told me I was in the wrong place. Defending that decision to others was its own battle, especially when I wasn't sure it would actually work out. 

Doyle's "keys" helped me see that the discontent I felt was not something to be ignored. It was the embers of a fire I needed to fan, not stamp out. 

2. Doyle articulates her advice in a profound and memorable way. 

Doyle's chapters about her four keys resonate with me the most, but almost every chapter has a small or profound lesson to share, from insight into how we mentally cage young boys just as much as young girls to the acceptance that faith has many forms and changes throughout our lives. 

Making monumental life changes meant I've felt (and still feel) a lot of doubt, but whenever I re-open "Untamed," I feel grounded again. By revisiting Doyle's words, I'm reminded of the path I want to be on and that I have the power to take myself to where I want to be. 

It's made me feel like walking away from my old life was okay, because it meant I was headed toward something better. 

3. Doyle's story is unique, but nearly every reader can see themselves reflected in it. 

In Glennon Doyle's second memoir "Love Warrior," she chronicles how her husband's infidelity brought out the warrior in her. On that very book tour, she announced she was leaving him for Abby Wambach, a now-retired American soccer player. 

This memoir isn't so much about Doyle discovering that she was queer, but how allowing herself to fall in love with Abby was one of the many ways she freed herself from her cages. She also talks about her journeys with sobriety, eating disorders, parenthood, and friendship, tying each of them back to the lessons she's learned about being free and authentic. 

There are a few cheesy anecdotes that are certainly skewed by Doyle's occasional rose-colored glasses, but they are few and far between. But overall, Doyle has an amazing way of drawing you in with her vulnerability, letting readers get lost in her stories and feel like the advice is specifically meant for them. It helps readers like myself see how her advice can apply to our own situations and empower us to reach for our own authentic lives, no matter how imperfect the journey may be. 

The bottom line: 

"Untamed" has a message for everyone and I continue to find Glennon Doyle's advice ringing true in my own life again and again. This book is for anyone who feels a gnawing discontent and is looking for a way forward, but I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to ground themselves and live a more authentic life. 

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• Show We Can Do Hard Things
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• Published September 10, 2024 at 4:01 AM UTC
• Length 57 min
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Find out who is playing Glennon Doyle on TV show 'Untamed'

Glennon Doyle is coming to the small screen. The author of multiple bestselling memoirs, including "Untamed," won't be playing herself in the TV series based on that book, but she announced on Tuesday just who will be.

And that actor is ... Sarah Paulson!

The news broke on Doyle's "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast featuring Paulson, Doyle, Doyle's wife Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle, Glennon's sister. She shared a snippet on Instagram.

"Want to meet who’s playing me in the Untamed TV show?" Doyle, 45, wrote in the caption. "My entire dream list consisted of only one person and: THERE. SHE. IS. I love you, @mssarahcatharinepaulson."

Related: Read Glennon's essay on parenting, 'Don't Carpe Diem'

"I thought it would never be me, but I dreamt about it being me," says Paulson, 47, in the clip. "Sometimes there are these ... things that are impossible to describe, sort of the feeling I felt in my body that it should be me.'"

The Emmy-winning Paulson also shared a clip from the podcast on her Instagram, writing in the caption, "This is an extremely exciting day for me. Cause, it's out there now — like Meg Ryan said in When Harry Met Sally, 'you can't take it back it's already out there' and so…"

In addition to writing bestselling memoirs, Doyle is the founder and president of the all-women nonprofit Together Rising, which focuses on grassroots philanthropy.

During the podcast, Paulson said she watched interviews with Doyle and Wambach and she got a "shaky feeling." Doyle was equally as anxious to make sure Paulson got on board, and sent her a heartfelt email, which they discussed during the podcast.

Paulson added in her Instagram caption that she was "grateful" for Doyle's trust. "I will try not to buckle under the weight of that trust," she added. "Here we go."

Randee Dawn (she/her) is an entertainment journalist and author based in Brooklyn. In addition to writing for TODAY.com, Variety and The Los Angeles Times, her debut novel, Tune in Tomorrow , about a reality TV show run by mythic creatures, published in 2022. She's also the co-author of The Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion . When not interviewing the stars or dabbling in speculative fiction, she dreams of the next place she can travel to, or cuddles her Westie. More at RandeeDawn.com .

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Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach

‘courage is the presence of fear, and going anyway.’.

Last Updated

July 22, 2021

Original Air Date

January 24, 2019

Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed has been a sensation of 2020 and beyond, and now she’s launched a new podcast titled with words of hers that have become a cultural force: We Can Do Hard Things . Meanwhile her wife, the soccer icon Abby Wambach, has her own bestselling books and is hosting a new tv show – Abby’s Places on ESPN+. Krista spoke with them before they were quite so much in the public eye together, and it’s a window into the passions that brought them here. They sat together in Seattle at the 2018 summit of Women Moving Millions, a consortium of women testing the meaning and boundaries of philanthropy. And courage was the theme of the day.

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Image by Morgan Jade Hornsby , © All Rights Reserved.

Glennon Doyle is creator of the online community Momastery and founder and president of Together Rising, a nonprofit for women and children in crisis. Her books include Untamed and Love Warrior . She also hosts the podcast, “ We Can Do Hard Things. ”

Abby Wambach is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, and six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of Year Award. She’s written two books: Wolfpack and Forward: A Memoir , and is host of “Abby’s Places” on ESPN+.

Krista Tippett, host: Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed has been a sensation of 2020 and beyond, and now she’s launched a new podcast titled with words of hers that have become a cultural force: We Can Do Hard Things . Meanwhile, her wife, the soccer icon Abby Wambach, has her own bestselling books and is hosting a new TV show, “Abby’s Places,” on ESPN+. I had a conversation with the two of them before they were quite so much in the public eye together, and it’s a window into the passions that brought them here. Abby first became a hero to many as an Olympic gold medalist and World Cup champion. Glennon first entered the American imagination as a “Christian mommy blogger,” but she and her online community, Momastery, evolved into a community of giving and activism, with a nonprofit called Together Rising. What follows is a conversation about courage that is both serious and playful as it turns up in their lives apart and together, from addiction to social activism to blended-family parenting.

[ music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoë Keating ]

Abby Wambach: I mean, Glennon and I talk a lot about this notion of despair. Sometimes she says it to our 10-year-old, who has fallen down in a soccer game. She’ll say, “No time for despair.”

[ laughter ]

And I’m looking at her, and I’m like, what kind of language are you using?

Glennon Doyle: No, you said, “This is a soccer game, not a poetry reading.”

Wambach: Trying to be nice about it.  

Tippett: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being .

Glennon Doyle has written several bestselling books before Untamed , including Love Warrior . Abby’s latest bestselling book, Wolfpack, emerged from the 2018 commencement speech she gave at Barnard College, which we discuss in this show . We all sat together in Seattle, at the 2018 summit of Women Moving Millions, a consortium of women testing the meaning and boundaries of philanthropy. And courage was the theme of the day.

So Glennon — let me just say one thing. We’re going to leap forward in this conversation and not go over a lot of the stories that, for both of you, that are where a lot of interviews with you happen, because you both have such fascinating stories. Like my teenage daughter would say, “It’s so epic.” You both have epic stories.

But I want to jump into the meat. And I just want to say, if you want to hear these two’s stories, they’ve written gorgeous books. But sometimes the way people will describe your body of work or your career — also, you started out as a blogger; you still are a blogger. Some people will say you’re a master of the “tell-all” form. And really, that’s many forms, and it ranges from the serious to the superficial. So here’s where we’re going to compress a lot of epic history into — Mother’s Day, 2002, you find out you’re pregnant, and that is just this huge turning point, because you decide to have the baby. And you actually marry the father, who you didn’t really know very well at all. And I was so struck by this, that AA — you decided you had to get into recovery, and it was such a revelation. And you wrote somewhere that you thought to yourself, “Why is it that we can only be this honest in little dark basements of churches, one hour a week?”

“What if we could actually be fully human and honest with each other in real life?”

So you started getting up — and again, I’m telling your story, but just to get us to other places — getting up early and writing in that voice that spoke at AA meetings. And one day, you logged onto Facebook, which was kind of new, and noticed that your friends were writing lists called “25 Things About Me,” and you contributed your own. And you definitely added to the genre. [ laughs ]

Doyle: I don’t know if you remember, but a decade ago, maybe, they were doing this list of “25 Things About Yourself.” And I was freshly sober, I was just dripping with babies — I think I had three under the age of five at that point — and really felt, like a lot of women do at that time, pretty isolated and lonely, overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time. Everything was like, too much and not enough. And I logged on, and I didn’t read anyone else’s lists. I just saw, people are writing lists about themselves. So I wrote my list and posted it and walked away and came back to my computer, and there were like 40 emails in my inbox.

Tippett: OK, but can I read number five?

Doyle: Oh God.

Tippett: “I am a recovering alcoholic and bulimic, seven years sober. Sometimes I miss excessive booze and food, in the same indescribable way you can miss someone who abused you and repeatedly left you for dead.” [ laughs ]

Doyle: Truth, except that my friend Lisa’s number six was, “My favorite snack food is hummus.”

So it was like, “Crap. We’re not doing that here.”

But that was also the moment when I got brave — I mean, I wanted to die, but then, when I got brave enough to start reading those emails, and every single one of them was just a different version of “Oh my God, me too.” “Me too.” “Me too.” And I thought — and they were from people I’d known my whole life, but we’d never really known each other, because we’d been too busy pretending that everything was so perfect and shiny, because for some reason, if we admit or talk to each other about life and relationships and work and all of this being hard, then it seems like some kind of admission of failure — which is so ridiculous, because life and relationships and faith and work and all these are hardest for the people who are doing them right, who are showing up and taking big risks and falling and trying again.

So sometimes it feels like we’re keeping the things from each other that are the very things that are so heavy that we’re supposed to be carrying them with each other. So I mean, when people say “tell-all,” all that means to me is I just don’t have any shame, because what I learned about my recovery, through getting sober, is that it’s not at all the pain of life or the difficulty of life — I still find life extremely difficult — but it’s not that that takes us out of the game. It’s the shame about the difficulty that takes us out of the game.

So I think probably what they mean is that I write about things that maybe other people don’t write about — all the time — but that’s because it’s a spiritual practice for me. The second I start to feel anything that has a hint of shame in it, I always think of that Maya Angelou quote that’s “I am human, so nothing human can be foreign to me.” I get it out, if it’s scary inside and dark; but once I get it out and get light on it, it just shrinks. It’s not so scary anymore. A bunch of people say, “Me too,” and I’m like, “Ah, I’m not bad. I’m just human,” and we get on with it. So I’ve just tried to turn my entire life into one giant AA meeting.

[ applause ]

Tippett: I actually just want to read this before we move on, because Abby, your story also has different contours of this struggle to own the contradictions — also, in your case, between the fantasy other people have of one’s life and the reality of a life. But Glennon, would it be right to say — Momastery, which is your — is that how you say it?

Doyle: Momastery.

Tippett: That’s how I always said it — I know. And then I hear people saying “muh- mas tery” …

Doyle: Oh, that’s my favorite.

Tippett: … and I think they’re not getting it. OK, Momastery —

Doyle: Well, on the Today show, they said, “This is Mom-Mastery: She’s mastering the mom,” which is like, the opposite of everything I stand for.

Tippett: I know.

Doyle: It’s like, noooo. I’m sweating.

Tippett: I know. I was so sure. Was it in 2011, the “Don’t Carpe Diem” post that had 4 million shares and really took off in a new way? And I just want to read this, briefly, because it’s just very beautiful, and a lot of us have been here. “Every evening Craig walks through the door” — that was your husband at the time — ”smiles hopefully, and says, ‘How was your day?’ This question is like a spotlight pointed directly at the chasm between his experience of a ‘day’ and my experience of a ‘day.’ How was my day? I look down at my spaghetti-stained pajama top, unwashed hair, and gorgeous baby on my hip, and I want to say, ‘How was my day? It was a lifetime. It was the best of times and the worst of times.’”

“‘I was both lonely, and never alone; I was simultaneously bored out of my skull and completely overwhelmed. I was saturated with touch, desperate to get the baby off of me, and the second I put her down, I yearned to smell her sweet skin again. This day required more than I’m physically and emotionally capable of, while requiring nothing from my brain. I had thoughts today, ideas, real things to say, and no one to hear them.’”

Doyle: Everyone’s like, “I can’t imagine that she’s divorced now.”

“That must’ve been lovely to live with.”

Tippett: So Abby, you’re a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a Women’s World Cup champion, FIFA World Player of the Year, on Time ’s list of 100 Most Influential People, praised by President Obama at the White House. Your book that you published — when did you publish that?

Wambach: 2016.

Tippett: It’s called Forward . And there’s a line in there where you’re describing just two weeks after your retirement, which was just the height of being celebrated. And you have a sentence in there — you’re speaking to yourself — “You are barely brave enough to leave your hotel room.”

Wambach: Yep. You know, when you spend over a decade in a spotlight, in one way or another — our national team gained popularity in 1999, when our team won the World Cup and Brandi Chastain ripped off her jersey. I wasn’t on the team then, but I got there a few years later, won a couple Olympic gold medals, and then finished off my career winning the World Cup in 2015, and I retired a few months later. And so you have certain levels — I had certain levels inside of me — that I could go and train, and I can compartmentalize the fame. I always said that we had a perfect amount of fame on the women’s national team, because it was not like a celebrity, where people were following us with cameras. We were revered and respected, and the downside is, we didn’t get paid enough to deal with it. [ laughs ] We could’ve gotten paid more, but then, maybe, if we’d gotten paid more, we would’ve been too famous.

But I just remember that time, being so exhausted. A couple weeks after my retirement, I was going on a media tour after the whole thing, and I just felt like, for once in my life — and I was really struggling at the time. I was really deep into my own addiction, and I was really living a hidden life behind that hotel room door, because I was traveling all the time. And I just remember feeling like, if people only knew that actually, I am terrified to walk outside of this hotel room. And somehow I was able to do it. Somehow, I was able to survive. My agent still can’t believe that the amount of traveling that I had to do during that time, that I was able to stand up and — knowing how I was feeling, after I turned in the manuscript of this book, he was like, “I didn’t know you were feeling any of this stuff.”

Tippett: And you’re out there making presentations and being received as a role model and a mentor and a hero.

Wambach: And a hero. For me, that’s what the irony was, is I just was internally feeling so scared and lost. When you have created this identity — I had this identity of myself as a soccer player, and now this identity was being completely shifted, and I didn’t know what the hell to do. And I found myself on a stage, months after my retirement, next to Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning — they were giving me this Icon Award.

Tippett: Is that ESPN?

Wambach: Yeah, for the ESPYs. And I was so happy to be there, and grateful and everything. And as we turned and walked offstage, I looked at both of those guys, and I thought, wow, all three of us are walking into very different retirements. And at that point —

Tippett: Well, and to be clear, and one of the ways you use to describe that is that they were walking away with fortunes.

Wambach: Of course.

Tippett: And you, your life of hustling was just beginning.

Wambach: Yeah, and I think that that, for me, that’s when the rage started to come to the surface. And — yeah, courage.

Doyle: Courage — it’s always got rage in it.

Wambach: [ laughs ] Yeah.

Tippett: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being , with Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach.

In the book you wrote, the chapters are all ways people had seen you and categories you’d …

Wambach: Labels, yeah.

Tippett: … sometimes walked into willingly, and sometimes it had been an armor. So it was everything from — or how you’d seen yourself. It would be: “Fraud,” “Tomboy,” “Rebel,” “Teammate,” “Lesbian,” “Manic,” “Depressive,” “Captain,” “Leader,” “Romantic,” “Hero,” “Addict,” “Failure.” And then the last chapter is “Human.” Somewhere, you said you had created yourself. All these categories that were both generated from you and generated externally helped create you, but shut you off from becoming human, fully human.

Wambach: Glennon has said this a lot: we’re all kind of like Russian nesting dolls. And as we get older, we keep putting on all of these costumes. And that’s what I thought, for me, growing up, that’s what I thought I had to do to mature, to age, to get wisdom, is to put on all these different costumes and see which one fit. And I think that now, having gone through a lot of my life — and granted, I’m still fairly young, at 38 — but I realize that the more you can actually take those costumes off and get down to that little, small, immobile Russian nesting doll, that is who you are, your true, true self. That is the humanity of all of us. And we all are in there.

Tippett: This is very random, but I just want to share it, because when I was reading, I was thinking — you ended with “Human,” which seems like the simplest, most elemental thing of all, but is really the work of a lifetime. I was thinking about — there’s this — when I studied theology, Paul Tillich wrote The Courage to Be . And he’s called an existentialist theologian. And I read it when I was older, because I always emphasized, when I thought of that “to be,” that “being.” But the book is actually about the courage it takes. The courage is the work.

So there’s your little theology for today.

OK, so big life-turning: I kept thinking of — what’s the language — inflection point, but really more like earthquake, I think, where your stories converge. And Glennon, you left a marriage. You had just written a book about repairing. [ laughs ]

Doyle: Yeah. It’s been a doozy, you guys.

Tippett: [ laughs ] So the two of you met and married — and here’s me, rushing through epic history again — and are now co-parenting your three children together, and actually co-parenting together with their father, in a really modern family.

Doyle: I mean, we don’t like, live in the same house. [ laughs ] It’s not that modern.

Tippett: You don’t live in the same house, no. [ laughs ] But you’re working together.

Doyle: Right, yes.

Tippett: Also, there’s really been an evolution of Momastery . Now, which came first, the Compassion Collective or the Love Flash Mobs?

Doyle: Well, the Love Flash Mobs. So that started a long time ago, and the Compassion Collective is really just a group of writers who are my friends, who joined together to help the — with our nonprofit.

Tippett: With the Love Flash Mobs. So talk about what that is and how that developed.

Doyle: Well, I mean, I would say when I became a writer and an artist, and I saw my job as — I think a writer is just, her job is to just pay close attention, just look closely at people. And I think when you look closely at people, you end up loving them. That’s just what happens, over and over again. So I fell in love with this little community that I was speaking to and hearing from every day, online.

And the way it started is one day, I was feeling really grateful, and at the time, I was using my feelings as energies. I think this is something my therapist had suggested. [ laughs ] And I was feeling all this gratitude. I said, “I’m going to do something with this gratitude.” So I said, “The first email that I open up, if it’s a request, I’m going to grant that request,” because people were always asking me for things.

So I opened my email, and it was a letter, a beautiful letter from this woman who ran a home for teenage homeless mothers, in Pennsylvania. And she said — she was just sharing her heart. She said, “This little girl, 14-year-old girl came to our home last night, holding a baby, and I had to turn her away because we didn’t have the funding for her.” And she was heartbroken. So I said, “Oh my God — that’s it.” So I actually called this woman in the email and said, “I want to pay for that girl to come into your home. What do you need?” And she said, “We need $80,000.”

And I said, “Well, then, we need another plan. That’s going to be a hard credit card charge to hide from my husband.” So I was despondent, because I knew I was supposed to do this; like, this was in the cards.

And that’s when I remembered I had this community of women online, who would feel the exact same way as I did about the situation, and that my job was to be a writer. My job was not to fix everything, but to tell the story of this girl, because I always thought the most revolutionary thing we can do is just introduce people to each other. So I called the woman back, and we stayed up all night, writing this beautiful essay with pictures and all the things, and I said, “We’re going to start something. Tomorrow, I’m going to post this story online, and we’re going to call it a Love Flash Mob,” because at the time, I was obsessed with flash mobs. Do you guys remember those amazing — you remember the one that Oprah did, with the  —

Tippett: Yeah, they kind of came and went.

Doyle: Right. So that one has like 79 million views, and I am 78 million of those views …

… because it’s just so gorgeous. It’s like a metaphor for life. It’s like we all just are walking around like zombies, disconnected from each other, and then suddenly, somebody, some fool starts dancing. And then some other fool starts dancing, too, and knows the moves. It’s almost like there’s some kind of choreography that we all know. And then everybody’s dancing.

So the beauty of the Love Flash Mob was, I’m going to open up the giving, but nobody is allowed to give more than $25, because the point was not just to raise the money, but the point was to create a community of givers. And I had to fix — what was the problem? We know we have the feeling; we want to help. But what happens between that feeling and “Just forget it”? And what happens, I think, in that space is confusion. “How much should I give? Will it matter? Who do I have to check with? Oh, I’ll do it later. And so I needed to make it so that — just smoosh that time together so that people didn’t drop off, and also to make somebody for whom $25 is a big deal feel as invested and as important as somebody for whom that was nothing.

So fast-forward seven hours later, we had like $130,000.

And that was just the first day. So now, years later, the Compassion Collective — this is a grassroots movement. Love Flash Mobs happen every once in a while. I think we’re just about to hit $15 million, and our average donation is $31. So my journey has been from artist to I guess what you’d say “philanthropy” — this idea that we love people, and we want to help people.

Somewhere in my journey, my team and I were spending just day and night, just emails and helping and helping and pulling people, pulling people. We’d sit down every once in a while — we’d say, what is going on? I believe that people are doing the best they can. Why are all these people suffering? All these people who are working their butts off to put food on the table for their family, and they can’t make ends meet. What’s going on?

One day, I read this quote that said, “You can only pull people out of the river for so long, until you have to look upriver to find out who’s pushing them in.” So that is when I added “activist” to my résumé. Philanthropy is one thing, and pulling people out of the water is one thing, but at some point we have to ask ourselves, what are the institutions and powers that are causing all of these children to not be able to have their heat turned on? What are the institutions that are causing all of these dads to be pulled out to jail for the most minor infractions? What are the institutions and powers-that-be that are causing so many freaking people to be addicted to opioids? We have to go upriver. We’re going to do and/both, all the time. So I just want to spend the rest of my life pulling people out of the river, and also just creating living hell for the people that are pushing them in.

Tippett: And what I also want to just pick up on, just moving back a little bit, is, what you’re doing by saying “you can only give $25” is also helping people not feel paralyzed. Years ago, I interviewed Joan Halifax, a wonderful Buddhist teacher. She talked about how she didn’t like this language of “compassion fatigue.” Although it’s certainly — we all know what she’s talking about. But she said she thought there’s such a thing as “pathological empathy,” because in fact, we get surrounded and inundated and bombarded by images that break our hearts, so many of us, I think. And it’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we’re overwhelmed by how much we care, and we have no idea what we can do to make it better. So that’s also what you’re describing. But we do need a different kind of courage that we don’t possess and that our public life doesn’t nourish right now, to hold that question and walk with it.

Doyle: And to turn heartbreak into action.

Tippett: Yeah. You’ve also gotten involved, and the Compassion Collective got involved, in the children being separated from their families at the border. And you said that — this is so powerful — “Issues like refugee care can seem so overwhelming.” You were saying this to your people, which is a million people or so. “But we’re going to do this thing that I learned when I first got sober. We are just going to do the next right thing, together.” And that’s what we’re not stopping to just say to ourselves and say to each other.

Doyle: Yeah, and I think this idea of compassion fatigue or despair — what I really notice is that the people who complain about despair so much are the people who aren’t doing anything, because what I feel is brokenhearted, a lot of the time, but when I do a little thing, when I just do something, there’s something else that happens. It’s not despair. I don’t know — it’s a little bit of hope. It’s that idea of, we cannot keep the fact that we can’t do everything to keep us from doing something. You do that little thing, and then you feel more awake and alive and connected. So many people, at the time, were saying — you know, this beautiful Mr. Rogers — have you guys seen the documentary?

Tippett: I started watching it on the plane. It’s not a good thing to watch on the plane. You don’t want to cry on the plane.

Doyle: I know. And he said his mother used to say, when tragedy struck, to look for the helpers. And what we say to our kids is, “No, no, that’s not good enough anymore. You have to become the helpers.” We have to be — there’s this side, and there’s this side, sometimes, and we just want to be the first responders. We want to be the people that show up and say, “Here we are. What can we do?”

And there’s something that I see that happens to people who just join in and just give a little bit and just do that next right thing instead of nothing. Whatever despair is, it’s not there with them. It’s a way of keeping hope alive.

Tippett: There’s this language you’ve used, “activism as self-care,” which has a lot of layers to it. And I also want to ask you, Abby, if that rings true for you, that language of activism as self-care.

Wambach: Yeah, I mean, Glennon and I talk a lot about this notion of despair. Sometimes she says it to our 10-year-old who has fallen down in a soccer game. She’ll say, “No time for despair.”

Doyle: No, you said, “This is a soccer game, not a poetry reading.”

Wambach: Trying to be nice about it.

[ music: “Nine Cans” by Huma-Huma ]

Tippett: After a short break, more with Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle.

I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being . Today I’m with the Olympic gold medalist and World Cup soccer champion Abby Wambach, together with her wife, the blogger, author, and philanthropist Glennon Doyle. We spoke at the Women Moving Millions 2018 “Power of Courage” summit in Seattle.

I think I want to go to something that might seem unexpected, in this room, because obviously, we could talk about women, but one thing you’ve been talking about recently is raising a boy in this world. And I do think, for so many of us, this realization has come that it doesn’t get better for women if we don’t make better men, and that certain girls — certain kinds of girls, the girls we’re raising in this room — you get a lot of support. I mean, not all girls. But you — would you tell the shower story? [ laughs ]

Doyle: Oh yeah. You guys, so I went into — because my daughter steals my shampoo all the time, because I buy her cheap shampoo, and I have nice shampoo.

So she steals it. We have this war going on, back and forth with the showers. So I went to her shower one day, and she shares with my son and my other daughter, and I went to her shower, and my girls’ stuff is lined up on one side of the shower, my boy’s stuff is lined up on the other. So of course, my girls’ bottles of shampoo are all pink and purple and slender and tall. I look over at my son’s, and they’re all red, white, and blue and patriotic and very thick and big. And I thought, “This is interesting,” right away.

So I pick up one of my son’s body wash, and you guys, I swear to you, it said this: “Three times stronger than any other soap, this will body-slam” — it was just word after word after militant, dangerous, violent word, till I was like, “Oh God! Are we preparing for war or cleaning ourselves?” And then I pick up the girls’ bottle, and it’s just wispy words that are all disconnected from each other, like “elegant,” “light,” “delicate,” “breezy” — just random things I guess we’re supposed to be, but don’t make any sentences or sense. And I just thought, oh, this is so interesting. And then I thought: before our kids even get out of the shower, we are already telling them how to lose most of their humanity and fit themselves into these little categories of masculinity or femininity — before they even get out of the shower.

And it made me think — just something about seeing that on my boy’s bottles. I became bulimic when I was 10 years old. I’ve been fighting toxic — messages of toxic femininity my entire life. And so when I had these little girls, the second they were born, I was holding them, just like, “You can be anything. Be angry! Go ahead, yell! Rage! I love your anger!” — whatever, just trying to raise these fierce girls. And it hit me, I haven’t been whispering that stuff to my little boy. I haven’t been saying to him, “You can be other things than angry. You can be vulnerable. You can cry. You can be soft. You can be gentle.”

I think, oh God, of course, he’s been learning just as many dehumanizing messages about what it means to be a boy in this world as my girls have. And we wonder why our little boys, that they — it is just as dangerous to tell a little boy that he can only be angry as it is to tell a little girl that she can never be angry. And we wonder why — every message we send to our boys is that in order to be a real man, you have to be really rich, and you have to be famous, and you have to conquer women, and you have to be utterly invulnerable. And then we wonder why our men can only talk about sports and news and weather and nothing else. The poor guys — I mean, we talk about it a lot. It must be so lonely to be a man.

Tippett: And still, it’s shocking that there are still all these messages. And you’ve kind of walked into parenting a boy.  

Wambach: Insta-mom. It’s been fun.

Tippett: What? Instant mom. [ laughs ]

Tippett: But has that been a revelation for you, because you walked into the middle of a boy’s life? And he’s a teenager, right?

Wambach: Yeah, and it’s different. When I first met Chase, he was 13 maybe, going on 14. The girls were a little bit younger — 12 and 8, maybe, 11 and 8 years old. And I think that because he was a little bit older, a little bit more baked, in terms of his maturity, you kind of have to process with a boy differently, on some level. He wants to stay a little bit more to himself. He’s studying more for school.

But we talk a ton about how we don’t want him to feel dehumanized, living among a bunch of women. So there’s times where — this is a truth: sometimes I found, when I first got into the family, I found that Glennon was more apt to push the girls to do some of the house chores.

Doyle: I can’t believe you’re saying this. We’re going to have so many talks.

Wambach: And I would be like, “Why doesn’t Chase have to do the dishes?” And she’s like, “You know what? I think you’re right.” So we’ve come down — we’re like, “Chase, you need to do the dishes. Even though you have homework to do, you have to do what has been, historically, a ‘feminine’ job, a role of a woman in the house.” We want to make sure that that’s an equal, shared chore for Chase so that he doesn’t feel left out.

Doyle: I was stunned — stunned at myself.

Tippett: I like that reframing.

I wonder if you would tell the story that you told when you, I believe, gave the commencement speech at Barnard — is that right?

That when you retired — and we never got to talk about what it’s like to be retired when you’re 38.

Wambach: It’s OK.

Tippett: OK, next time — that your sponsor, Gatorade, surprised you at a meeting with a plan for your send-off commercial and that the message was “Forget me,” which made you really happy.

Wambach: Yeah, I went in there — and I’ve done work with Gatorade for my whole career. I’ve been a Gatorade athlete, at the time, for I guess it was 15 years. So when I walked in the offices, and they sat me down, and they showed me that they were going to make this commercial that was going to be my commercial, my retirement commercial — well, first of all, I was very honored. It feels like rarified air, to be the athlete for a campaign for Gatorade. And then the messaging that they wanted to get across to the consumer was this “forget me” idea.

And for me — I know that sounds so bizarre, because most athletes are egomaniacs and crazy into themselves, but I really feel deeply that the legacy I wanted to leave is making sure that I am leaving the sport better than I found it. And so often — you know, I hold the record for most goals scored, for any person on the planet.

Tippett: Of any gender.

Doyle: She’s humble. She’s humble, you guys.

Wambach: And so people ask me all the time — there’s actually this woman from Canada, Christine Sinclair, that …

… she will likely break my record within the next 12 months. And don’t say anything, Glennon, because she’s like, “No, I don’t want her to break your record!”

But the reality and the truth is — and I really do believe this — that especially women, we are here to keep pushing each other. And if somebody breaks my record, that means the game is better. That means the game is growing. That means other people are achieving greater, bigger heights than me. And that is the kind of legacy that I can actually wrap my mind around. And you can’t find success unless you are willing to let it go when it’s over.

Tippett: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being . Indeed, Christine Sinclair did break Abby Wambach’s record after this conversation I had with her and her wife, Glennon Doyle.

And I feel like, coming from really different directions, the two of you use this really kindred language. I mean, you talk about that we need to “champion” each other. And Glennon, you use the language of “sistering” each other.

Doyle: Well, “sistering” is just the best word ever. OK, so …

Wambach: I love this story.

Doyle: You know carpentry? It’s just boards and nails, carpentry, right? Jesus was one.

So there’s this thing happens in carpentry, where the mainstay of a building is a joist. And so every once in a while, the joist starts to weaken because there’s a load put on top of it that’s too heavy. So when that happens, they say, “OK, bring some extra boards.” And they put an extra board to the right of the weakening joist, and if that doesn’t make it strong enough, then they bring another board, and they put it to the left of the weakened joist. And with an extra board to the right and an extra board to the left, the joist becomes strong enough to withhold any load. And do you know what that carpentry system is called? “Sistering.” I mean, it’s like the guy carpenters were like, “Oh, we can’t name this ‘brothering.’ That’s too much intimacy there.”

“So that looks more like what the ladies would do.”

But it’s just the most beautiful, to me, example of how women support each other, and for life, because sometimes the load on us just gets too heavy to carry by ourselves. And the mistake we make when that happens is, we think that we’ve done something wrong. We think we’ve made a mistake, we’ve gone wrong somewhere, because it can’t be this heavy.

But if we never had to ask for help because we couldn’t carry the load anymore, then we would miss out on the best part of life, which is just sistering and being sistered. Or champion each other. Go get the ball, score the goal.

Wambach: Same thing. Same, same.

Doyle: Yes.

Tippett: And I’m using the language of, we need to “accompany” each other, which is just another, in this universe of words, but also realizing that that’s also tricky, when we — saying “Forget me” is very complex, and you also have a story about coaching your 10-year-old daughter’s soccer team and somebody asking you, “So you retired. What did you retire from?” [ laughs ]

Doyle: Halfway through the season, you guys.

Wambach: So it was halfway through the season, and we were warming up for a game, and I was laying off some of the soccer balls so that they could shoot. And I had just mentioned, “Oh, when I retired …” And one of the girls said, “Oh, what did you retire from?” And I said, “Soccer.” She said, “Oh! Who did you play for?” And I said, “I played for the United States of America.” And she goes, “Oh, does that mean you know who Alex Morgan is?”

So watch out for what you ask for, because they forgot me.

Tippett: I love that, and I feel that this — especially in this moment we inhabit, this cross-generational friendship is so important; that we’ve given our children a very complicated world, and they don’t want to be told what to do, but they want to be accompanied. And it is also about us relinquishing power we have and the knowledge — the unbecoming, because that’s beautiful and hard.

Doyle: We tell our kids all the time — I think one of the amazing things about parenting is, you want to teach your kids how to be human among humans, and so it makes you stop and consider how to be a human among humans. [ laughs ] You have to stop and think about it for the first time.

And so one of the challenges I’ve found so much in parenting is the same challenge that I find in my actual life, which is just letting them have their pain, because like you said, these things, we talk about them, but they’re hard. And we feel them. And one of the most important parts of my sobriety and in activism, and why I call activism self-care, is just giving myself permission to feel the things. And so Abby will tell you, I mean, I feel really — I allow myself to feel [ laughs ] a lot. I allow feelings to take me to bed for 24 hours, quite often. And I think that there is some kind of crazy power in that.

In my commitment to sobriety, each day, just being committed to dealing with life on its own terms, and my own feelings on its own terms, and not rushing myself and distracting myself — and sometimes that means I go down hard. And then there’s something that happens after that that’s really beautiful, 100 percent of the time. So we say, all the time, with our kids, everything’s a pattern. It’s first the pain, then the waiting, then the rising — over and over and over again. Pain, waiting, rising. And when we skip the pain, we just never get to this rising.

Tippett: And courage is borne of that and giving in to that.

Doyle: And courage is borne of that, just surrendering to the process. And so, especially being a parent who’s raised in the — you know, we got this parenting memo that everything would be OK if we just never let anything bad ever happen to our children, ever, as long as — they gave us the babies and were like, “Take her home and just never let being human happen to this child. Don’t let anyone ever frown at her, don’t let her lose anything, don’t let a drop of rain fall onto her head, and then everything will be fine.” Our parents got the memo: “Just take her home and then go drink Tab and smoke cigarettes and have Bloody Marys.”

Tippett: [ laughs ] Right, like you did throughout the pregnancy.

Doyle: Right. So they got the awesome memo, and ours sucked.

So anyway, that’s what I figured out. It took me till my kids were 10 to realize that that parenting memo was complete b.s. and that when we don’t let our kids fail, and we don’t let our kids feel, they don’t learn how to become human. So one of my greatest challenges in my personal life and in my parenting is just to look at my kids and say, “I’m not going to protect you from this. I’m going to let you fail here. I’m going to let you feel that. Yes, yes — life is that hard. It is that hard to be human, and I’m not going to grab that from you.”

We talk about — we’re trying to raise these kids who don’t think they have to be fire avoiders, who don’t have to constantly avoid the fires of their lives and of their relationships and of the world, because they learn over and over again that they can walk through the fires, because they’re fireproof. That’s what we learn, when we keep showing up for hard things and we keep making it through: that we don’t have to skip the hard things anymore, because we somehow always survive and end up stronger.

Tippett: I want to ask you, in closing, just each of you, just for a moment to reflect on what makes you despair right now and where you’re finding hope.

Doyle: You want me to go first?

Wambach: Well, sure. I mean, I don’t care.

Doyle: No, go ahead. I just didn’t know if you were …

Wambach: I think that what makes me feel despair is just how lost it feels like parts of our government feel to me. And what makes me feel hopeful is that I know that it won’t last forever.

Doyle: Well, I mean, I think, for me, the despair and the hope come in the exact same place. I keep hearing all over the place, “Oh my God, what’s going on right now? Everybody’s suddenly so racist, and everybody’s so homophobic, and everybody’s so —” and OK, but like, the people have always been like that. [ laughs ] It’s just that now we can see it.

Wambach: And people are talking about it.

Doyle: Right, now it’s at the surface. So when you ask people who actually have been affected by racism their whole life, when you ask people of color, they’re not super surprised right now.

They’re like, “OK, so thanks, everybody.”

Wambach: “Welcome.” [ laughs ]

Doyle: “You just got to the party.” Right? So that’s why I think the despair and the hope are in the exact same place. And I think about this all the time, because we give destruction — we’re too scared of it. We’re too scared of apocalypse. Like, who wants things to stay the same? Not me. You know? We get so scared of the ends of the world.

As women — the first story I ever learned about God and being a woman was, “OK, so everything was great, and God put two people in a garden, and — no, no, first, one person in a garden. That was Adam. And then he gave birth to Eve.”

OK, so we’re supposed to take that one on the chin, first. OK, all right. So men give birth to women. OK, it’s not what I’ve seen in my life, but — got it.

“And then everything was fine until the woman wanted something, and then she went for it, and then all hell broke loose, and everything was terrible forever. Thank you for joining us. Go in peace.”

And then we’re like, why are women so confused about what they want, and food? I don’t know, she just wanted an apple. What if she wanted a freaking pizza?

And what I think about over and over again is, what that story does, what every story we learn about being a woman does is make us start to fear what we desire. Women have to fear what we desire. What women want is bad. What women want is scary, which makes us doubt ourselves over and over again. “What do we want? We don’t know what we want; we don’t even know where we want to go to dinner. Who knows? We don’t know.”

But what I find, talking to women all over the world, is that what women want is so good that if women started to go for it, power structures would tumble. So doesn’t it make sense that every single power structure would have to make women doubt what they desire? Because if women went for what they desired, the world would crumble.

Wambach: That’s good.

Doyle: And other worlds, based on equality and justice and love and peace would have to be rebuilt in their place. So what I want women to do is just go for the apple and let it burn.

Tippett: [ laughs ] Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach, thank you so much. And thank you for having us.

[ music: “Noizy Birdz” by Raphael Treza ]

Tippett: Glennon Doyle is creator of the online community Momastery and founder and president of Together Rising, a nonprofit for women and children in crisis. Her books include Untamed and Love Warrior. She hosts the podcast We Can Do Hard Things .

Abby Wambach is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, and six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of Year Award. She’s written two books: Wolfpack and Forward: A Memoir , and she’s host of “Abby’s Places,” on ESPN + .

The On Being Project is located on Dakota land. Our lovely theme music is provided and composed by Zoë Keating. And the last voice that you hear singing at the end of our show is Cameron Kinghorn.

On Being is an independent, nonprofit production of The On Being Project. It is distributed to public radio stations by WNYC Studios. I created this show at American Public Media.

Our funding partners include:

The Fetzer Institute, helping to build the spiritual foundation for a loving world. Find them at fetzer.org ;

Kalliopeia Foundation, dedicated to reconnecting ecology, culture, and spirituality, supporting organizations and initiatives that uphold a sacred relationship with life on Earth. Learn more at kalliopeia.org ;

The Osprey Foundation, a catalyst for empowered, healthy, and fulfilled lives;

The Lilly Endowment, an Indianapolis-based, private family foundation dedicated to its founders’ interests in religion, community development, and education;

And the Ford Foundation, working to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement worldwide.

Books & Music

Recommended reading.

Author: Abby Wambach

Forward: A Memoir

Author: Glennon Doyle

Love Warrior

The On Being Project is an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and Amazon.com. Any earnings we receive through these affiliate partnerships go into directly supporting The On Being Project.

Music Played

Seven League Boots

Artist: Zoë Keating & Zoë Keating

Artist: Huma-Huma

Noizy Birdz

Artist: Raphael Treza

This piece is a part of:

• Friendship & Relationships
• Mental Health
• Children, Parenting & Education
• Public Theology Reimagined

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