Kate Bowler: There are people who are solvers. They could run the world. They can be the go-to person for everyone’s problem. They make decision trees. They give great advice. They take action. You want these people in charge. Oh, hello, yes. I’m probably talking about you. But what about when they are the ones in need? How do they ask for help? And how do they receive it? Maybe this is one of the secrets to being a grownup that we could all practice. This is Everything Happens, and I’m Kate Bowler. Today I’m speaking to someone who would win every award for most capable person. There is not a problem you can’t hand her that she will not solve, which is a wonderful skill, until, of course, maybe the problem in front of you isn’t a problem you can fix. Like when her son was diagnosed with ADHD and she had to learn to see him in his inherent goodness, not just see the struggles he may encounter. Or maybe the problem isn’t one you can solve alone, like when she was receiving treatment for breast cancer and needed the help of others to navigate a complex medical system. So, this episode is going to be a must-listen for every problem solver, every Type 1 Enneagram. A person who refuses to ask for help, even when they could really use a hand. Or actually maybe a type two who will die of empathy or a type three who just performs it or type four, look, just everybody. My guest today is Amanda Doyle. Amanda is a producer, author and podcast host. Previously, she was a lawyer advocating for women and children in Rwanda with International Justice Mission, which is one of my very, very favorite nonprofits. She also served as the vice president and general counsel for Together Rising, a nonprofit organization which distributed more than $55 million to women, families, and children in crisis. Alongside Glennon Doyle and Abby Wamback, Amanda hosts We Can Do Hard Things and is the author of We Can Do Hard Things, Answers to Life’s 20 Questions. Amanda, my lovely, this is such a treat for me.
Amanda Doyle: Kate Bowler, I am honored to be with you, and thank you for saying those things. When you were talking at the beginning, I was like, has Kate been talking to my therapist? This is generally our agenda.
Kate: I think one of the great men I know, Gary Haugen, founder of IJM, and he was funny when I met him. He had this very, very sad book called The Locust Effect, and it’s about how when terrible things happen, then, spoiler, more terrible things happen to those people, and that’s the secondary effect, and you have to really watch for the secondary fact. He gave like the saddest, most honest account of the world. And then the second the interview was over and I was like, he was laughing hysterically. He was jokes, jokes, and I said, dude, how do you become this person? And he goes, oh, joy is the oxygen for doing hard things.
Amanda: This is so true. Isn’t it often the people that would have very good reason to not see joy in anything, who carry so much, who have seen more than they should, and this is not me. I’m saying my observations of people, people like Gary Haugen, people, like, you know, the civil rights leaders of past and present and all the people who have very good reason to be calloused about the world are also able to mine the deepest joy. It’s connected, it’s both. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it lately in terms of like the time that we’re in right now, and that Camus quote about like basically living with joy is a resistance. And it’s because, like, if you don’t have joy, then you don’t have anything worth fighting for. So these people who love, who see the beauty, who see life, who humanity, who see why all these people are worthy of protection and shelter are the people who are fighting hardest for it.
Kate: It’s such a deeply hopeful thing to even let yourself be joyful that there’s more somehow. Because I think my response typically is in the great unknowing, it’s just my response is like control.
Amanda: Hmm. I don’t know. Tell me a little bit about that, Kate. I’m unfamiliar with the compulsion to control.
Kate: I’ll explain it to you. Okay, okay, because there is a particular kind of person that becomes a wonderful, do-gooding, globally-minded lawyer. And that kind of person, hypothetically, is a problem solver, they’re the organizer, they are the ones everyone turns to in a crisis. And so whenever I hear about your approach to the world, Amanda Doyle, I think so much about one of my very best friends, her name is Catherine, and you guys are the same person. There’s like not a problem you can’t solve. There’s not a detail that goes unnoticed. If I’m in the hospital, there will be a pillow. It might be warmed. Every future trip has an itinerary. So I wonder, as you’ve been like beginning to explore these kinds of questions as the very capable person trademarked, what part of that aspect of your personality do you feel like you’re trying to unlearn right now?
Amanda: Mm. A lot of it, frankly. I think it’s a it’s a weird challenge for people who are like that, like I am, because it is useful to those around you. It is helpful. You have only gotten praise for being able to figure things out and handle things. So it’s a challenge to even see it as a challenge. I realized that fixing and helping was how I loved and it became very sad and very confusing to me because how I was loving, exhausting myself loving, doesn’t feel like love to others. It feels like control because when you are used to walking into any situation and scanning a room or a scenario for the problems and the obstacles and the way things can be improved, then that is all you’re seeing. And in fact, that is how I show up in the world for people that I love. And then it gets very sad and reaches kind of a crescendo where I’m like, I’m doing everything I can to love you, and you’re not feeling any of my love. And so it’s like, you’re walking around carrying this huge bag, and you are so burdened, and then people are looking at you like, you’re so annoying when you walk in here with that big bag, right? You think your bag is a bag full of love, and it’s the only way you know how to show it.
Kate: Yeah, it’s my whole toolbox. And I have all this stuff and I’m taking it out. It’s very emotional to hear you describe this because I can feel how much the want, I’ve wanted that and how not received as love that has been. And then also just how resentful that makes us.
Amanda: Exactly it’s a vicious cycle. It’s a vicious cycle because then you’re doing everything you can to love the person’s not feeling the love then they’re feeling unknown and unseen because you can’t love them the way that they want to be loved and need to be loved and you feel unknown and unappreciated because all you’re do is loving and nobody can feel it and that’s you know in my parenting in my marriage in my workplace, like it’s… It’s tricky and I think it broke open for me with my son. And that breaking open with him has kind of helped me very slowly and very poorly, like I’m stumbling through this, try to like have it apply in other ways.
Kate: Can you tell me a bit more about that, Amanda, that feeling where you, like as a parent, felt the wall of your approach?
Amanda: So my son has ADHD and he is a glory of many magical, mysterious, beautiful things and has a lot that’s associated with that, you know, some dysregulation and a lot of challenges. And I could only see for a long time the areas that were going to be blocked for him, the places where he needed help to be better, worrying about us not giving him what he needed, basically living in a posture of like, is he gonna be okay all the time and trying to look and scan the world for whether or not that would be true. And I was so worried about protecting him and helping him avoid the shame and the judgment of the world. But I was bringing, by constantly trying to help him, I was bringing that shame to him directly. I got to this place where I was like, I can either focus on helping my kid and asking the world constantly and constantly monitoring for the rest of my life whether he is okay and is going to be okay, or I can just decide that he is. And not like pretend, but really believe it. And what happened when I stopped looking at him and seeing his behaviors, I could actually see him, but I couldn’t when I was looking at his behaviors or looking for challenges. And so I almost missed it. Like I almost missed the whole thing. And I’m so thankful because I can see him. I know him now. And he is ridiculous and so funny and so deeply feeling. He’s just a miracle. And like, I missed it almost forever. And it made me think what else? What else am I missing? Because I’m fixing and not loving, because I’m helping but not knowing.
Kate: There’s something so divine in what you’re describing, too. I’m just picturing the way you’re looking at your son and that feeling, the feeling when we are asking the world or sometimes asking God, like, am I OK? Or am I always just a problem to be solved? And for you to feel your child’s deep wholeness and then be able to then like be able to mirror that back to each other. There’s something so spiritually profound. There’s a certain kind of magic to love that it completes us when love says you are already perfect.
Amanda: I think loving our people, loving our children, loving whoever it is that you’re like, just can’t even freaking believe they’re alive. That… Like I’m looking at my kid and I could never think you are bad. Like you are so, I mean, they do a lot of bad stuff.
Kate: Sure, sure, sure. Right, right, right.
Amanda: But like at your core, I’m like, you are a divine miracle and nothing is ever compared to you.
Kate: I realized the other day when I’m on my knees, praying with my son, because we do this like, you know, you’re like praying about the horrors of the world, but mostly about bad dreams and like whether baseball will be okay. And I realized as I’m like on my knees in front of him, I was like, oh, like this is also like, praise God, et cetera, but like, this is also just worship at the altar of love. I’m so grateful you are alive. And like, when I look at you, I know something about love I can’t have known. Unless I believed in your, like, intense, perfect wholeness. And then I know something about myself because I know what it is to love you.
Amanda: And I know something about myself because I know, I know intellectually, even though I can’t yet feel it, that the worthiness that you have of love, the perfection in you as a soul is also true of me.
Kate: With the second part impossible, the first part, totally. And then maybe we’ll get there, right? Will I feel that someday?
Amanda: But that’s what I mean. That’s the thing about the other people of the mirror. You have to engage in some serious dissonance, which I do, to look at one person and say, you’re a miracle child of God, and you’ve got a little God fairy dust all over. But me, not so much. I’m just a pile of real problems. Like, that doesn’t, it’s not true. And then you think about, like, oh wow. So perhaps there’s a chance that I am okay.
Kate: Yes, that’s right. We’re going to be right back after a break to hear from our sponsors. Don’t go anywhere. I always live in like a strange relationship to my ability to hunt down problems and fix it because there’s been certain moments of my life in which that has probably been the most important quality, period. And I think you feel the same way about your diagnosis, the like, holy crap, if I were not this very vigilant person, something very bad would have happened.
Amanda: I think that the blessing of this type of personality, which is also one of the curses, is just limitless self-efficacy. My posture towards the world is like, I dare you to give me a problem I can’t solve. And I wish that for people, because it makes you feel powerful in the world, and just the belief, just the believe actually makes you powerful. Not because you can but because you know there are not things that are inaccessible when you try to learn them and figure them out. In particularly the health space, and I should start to say like I, whatever happened here is like the opposite of my normal thing. I think part of the personality of the fixer is that we do it outside of ourselves in order to avoid the actual problems with us or the actual self compassion or the actual attention to yourself. So like, this is, it is just flag in the sand of like, it’s a lot easier and less vulnerable to focus your floodlight out and help everybody else around and be like, nothing to see here.
Kate: I remember one person one time listened to my podcast and who knows me and goes like, Oh, okay. I get it, Kate. Like so grace for everyone else but you? I was like, shut your face.
Amanda: Exactly, there is something about it that is really worthy of grief that I’m just starting to kind of touch around the edges of, of like, why is my light always out and my light is not in? Like, at what point did I learn that I don’t deserve the gifts of myself, but everyone else does.
Kate: That’s really good, that’s really, that is like, that is deeply, that’s deeply true and it’s deeply sad. And I think a lot of people who are always trying would never imagine someone else would try like that for them.
Amanda: And it’s not like I don’t think of it and like the self care literally like the way I imagine I want to like greet people or the energy that I’m bringing to them, it’s never occurred to me to fill myself with that energy. It’s ever occurred to like, that it might be nice to feel that. Why, that’s so weird. So all of that to say, this is weird that I’m like, I should go to the doctor. Guess I was what, 44, 45? Yeah, I was 44. And I, my great grandmother died in her early 40s of lady part cancer. This is before anyone talked about anything, so they didn’t know is it ovarian cancer? Is it uterine cancer? No one talks about these things. My great grandmother also around the same age of unmentionable lady part cancer. I said, like, I just want to get a genetic test. I just wanna see what’s happening here and if there’s anything I can do preventatively. And I went and got genetic testing done, which was pretty simple, like for folks who want to do it and are lucky enough to have insurance, like there are tests for that. And of course, you know, just be ready for the first three times that people say that’s not necessary and you don’t need to worry about it, and all of these things like that is not a stop sign. That is, oh, I expected to see you here. I’m just continuing right along on my path like that. I got that testing done. There was one marker that was concerning. Um, so I went to a cancer center. Anyway, long story short, it turns out that that marker that was concerning was not actually concerning, but once I was in the care of someone, they were like, you have actually a higher risk of breast cancer, which was very surprising to me, we got a baseline MRI and there was some issues with it, but they were like, it’s probably just hormonal. It’s probably nothing. And I was like, I think I’d like to just be sure about that. And so let’s go get another MRI and got another one and it was confirmed that not only was that something that was, was it not hormonal, but it was growing and it was a problem. And so I got diagnosed with breast cancer, I then had a double mastectomy and that was wild because in that moment that I was first told, I was sitting on the side of the road and I was on spring break with family and had like terrible reception. And they told me that I had cancer and that it was early enough that it very likely gonna be okay. And the first thing I thought was I saved my own life.
Kate: It’s wonderful, like that bit of iron in you that was like, I’m going to find the end of this thread. I just think that’s a really rare and wonderful thing.
Amanda: I think it has never happened to me before that I’m aware of that in part, it was because I had just lost my dear friend, Wendy, who died of cancer. And the model that we have of like, you find out that you have cancer when your body is riddled and you are… I mean, you know this more than anyone. Like, why is that the model? I mean the other huge important part about this is that in this whole process, I was told again and again that I was fine. I had gotten regular mammograms the entire time, going every year, and I still had to push for the MRIs, even though I was totally clear, because I wasn’t told that I have extremely dense breasts and that extremely dense breast do not show cancer. People don’t know this and it’s ridiculous. I went for my, the two days before my double mastectomy. For some reason, they make you get an MRI like two days before the thing. And the guy came back and was like, your mammogram is a hundred percent clear. I would have sent you out of here and told you, I’ll see you next year.
Kate: It’s like a high percentage, it was like a surprisingly high percentage of people with dense breast tissue?
Amanda: Like 50% or something, but it is the percentage that’s actually extremely dense within that that characterization of density is it’s like 10% of people, but that’s a significant amount of people who are going to mammograms thinking they’re fine. So if you have extremely dense breasts, you find out you have a right to find out they have to tell you your breast density. If they say you have dense breasts ask what level are you. If you’re in the extremely dense, then demand an MRI.
Kate: That’s such good advice. It’s so practical just to have another step. I imagine it was a pretty significant role reversal at that moment for you, the very capable person trademarked, to then have other people, maybe just even to allow other people into your process, like Glennon and Abby flew out to be with you for a very scary appointment. I will admit, I should not be followed on this because the more scared I am, often I’ll go to those alone. Because I just think, oh, I’ll just get through the appointment and then I can manage my own feelings. I don’t have to manage my feelings about other people. But then the number of times when I’m alone in a moment where like I should never have been alone and I just didn’t, I didn’t make it, I did not make it very easy. I’m just, I’m wowed that you allowed people in.
Amanda: I am too, and I’m so thankful. And Kate, it’s so interesting, the more capable you are, the more people are like, I don’t know, she’s just gonna wanna do it herself. And for all intents and purposes, you could, because I dare the world to give Kate some things she can’t handle. But this thing was the first one that I’m aware of that I couldn’t have done. And I don’t mean couldn’t have done like with the depths of my, like reserves of courage or resilience. I mean, literally, I would have missed it. I would’ve missed half the things that I should have known. I would of, like that is such a soul crushing process and it is so deeply overwhelming. And you go to one doctor and they tell you what you need, unequivocally and exactly what’s gonna happen. And you’re so exhausted by the whole process and you just want to believe that what they’re saying is true and go ahead with the program. And there was one moment, Glenn and Abby flew out and we had met with one doctor. And that night, Glenn and I, we came up and they were like, I think we should get a second opinion. And that idea, I felt like I was like, that’s not possible. How do we even do that? I’m so overwhelmed already. I didn’t have the will or capacity. It was like you trekked the top of a mountain and someone was like, should we try that next mountain? And there’s no chance that I would have done that on my own.
Kate: And even all the things that like, if somebody else is there, then they can do those things. They can hear the parts of the story that actually your brain dies part way through and can’t hear all the details. They can ideally record it in some way or take notes and then be able to use that to like scaffold the next visits. You don’t have to start from scratch with the same like, man, cause just telling the story is so wearying and then waiting like just all the emotional push-pull of just those appointments is such a key person, but I never think to bring a witness. We’re going to take a quick break to tell you about the sponsors of this show. We’ll be right back. I started recently seeing an attachment psychologist who I don’t, I wasn’t really sure what kind of like, you know, every season of life you’re like, what’s the growth area? And I think I’ve just been trying to grow exactly around this area is how can I let other people do any of this work with me when all I want to do when I’m scared is to just get through it and do it by myself? And this lovely woman works in a hospital setting with people who are doing like long-term diabetes care and there’s often a lot of like risk and fear and just all kinds of like obstacles. And what’s so wonderful about talking to her is her advice over and over again is like, the more scared you are, you gotta lean into your attachments. You gotta like, you gotta just like find the people who are gonna like draw closer and closer, even if they’re just good for that one situation. Like the more you want to be alone, the more you should probably actually just, like, text a friend.
Amanda: Do you know why you don’t go for help? Because I’ve been trying to figure that out for me. And I think that I am so deeply, deeply uncomfortable with being witnessed when I don’t have it all figured out. Kate, I’m not talking about like emotional struggle just, I’m talking about, like, if my husband is watching me try to like fit the things in the freezer and it’s not working.
Kate: I totally do the same thing. Don’t look at me do this.
Amanda: I get enraged.
Kate: Me too. I feel so angry.
Amanda: There is something connected to the don’t watch me try to close this box, and the I will do it myself. I will get through cancer on my own.
Kate: I totally agree. This entirely tracks from everything from parenting to home renovation to cancer. Yeah.
Amanda: I flip it back and I’m like, why don’t you just be doing something else? I’m doing this. I’m taking care of this and you’re just watching me take care of this. But I don’t know if that’s actually honest. I think it might be I cannot tolerate being witnessed in any kind of struggle.
Kate: I know that that’s right. I would much rather say you’re judging me than say I feel deeply embarrassed that what I’m doing I will not do perfectly.
Amanda: I think we can catch ourselves, or at least I can, in this kind of like humble brag thing where it’s like, well there’s some people that need help and that’s cute. And like I really believed that for a while. I don’t anymore. I mean, I’m a highly effective person, but I am not immune from the way of humanity, which is how we get deeper into ourselves and more of what we’re supposed to be through fleshing and threshing that out with other people.
Kate: I can always hear it that I’m like arguing constantly for dependence, fragility, like the courage it takes just to be a human, which is to say dependent and fragile, but like it is not something I like in myself. And I think it’s too like the more scared we are by health, by other people’s okayness, by like, activated by love. So all the stuff you just you said at the beginning about being like, not wanting to be this particular version, but because of love. That makes so much sense to me, because it’s like, it’s it’s all the like lion’s roar feeling.
Amanda: And the same like ferocity that we bring to things, it’s, that’s our love, right? You’re like, oh, I will go at this problem. I will go, don’t you worry, I’ll take care of this.
Kate: Exactly. Exactly. I’m always very moved by moments where people, they let, they just, they let other people in. And that story of your friend Christine, where I thought was so touching.
Amanda: So my dear friend, Christine, I was there in the hospital room when her baby was born. We got through, she got me through my divorce. She would, you know, she was amazing. We kind of, we lost touch. And then she, a couple of years ago, just wrote to me and said, Chris, her husband, needed massive heart surgery, like really scary, dramatic, dangerous heart surgery and she has two kids and she just wrote and said this is what’s happening and this is the help I need. Like very concrete, very like, on these three days is when I need help you can either give rides to the kids or bring dinner to the people here’s what and of course I was like oh my goodness of course and I will be there and that’s the thing, right? So then we were able to reconnect and kind of I was able to follow what was happening with her husband. And thank God he was okay. And they got through it. And then a year later, we got this invitation in the mail to a dinner. It was called Eat Your Heart Out, which love a good pun. That’s the first thing, right? There’s probably 20 of us around the table, and she got up at the dinner and said, this is not in honor of Chris’s health, although we’re grateful for that. This is just that we wanted you all to know that you are the reason we were able to get through this and that you showing up for us made that possible. And that if you ever are in a situation like this, people will show up for you too, if you ask, and we will be among those people who show up. It was such a beautiful moment. It felt like, you know those moments, I know that you know this, these moments where you’re like, oh, the fog has lifted, I see. I see the thing that’s invisible all the other times. And none of that happens if Christine doesn’t send me that text and say, this is what I need from you. And it became so obvious that asking for what you need is the most generous thing you can do. It’s inviting people in to a place where they wouldn’t be. Like, and they wouldn’ get to see, they wouldn’t get to witness that web. They wouldn’t get to get close to you. Like, it felt the richness of that moment. I felt like I was like, I want more of that in my life. I want this in my live. And how many tables have I missed being at? How many tables of connection have I missed hosting? Because I haven’t been brave enough to show up in the messy middle of things. And that’s the table of connection, right? Like is letting people in before you have it figured out. I just want the richness of that. It’s like not that awesome to be praised for having figured some shit out and be alone at your table.
Kate: So in conclusion, don’t be us all the time. I mean, be the not us. Let people love us.
Amanda: Yeah, I think it’s like… Can I see myself the way I see my son now? Which is like, I don’t have to ask the world if I’m okay. I just have to believe I am and then show up as I am.
Kate: Yes, because people wanna be there.
Amanda: People want to be there.
Kate: We get notes all the time and just that one thing and that’s the part where like I want to put that back together in all of us and the note always goes I don’t actually have anybody. Actually I don’t have somebody I would call and I think underneath that is there are people I do know but I’m worried that if I contacted them there is something about me that they would never say yes to and so what I hear in this is such a powerful call to just say like, hand on heart, we can give ourselves that deep yes because other people wanna say yes to us.
Amanda: And they were giving them a gift by doing that. Like that’s not a burden. You’re inviting them to a table where they can see what is made visible only when you’re at that table. People want that. People are lonely. People want to be connected and useful and needed. You saying, I need you, says that that other person is worthy and needed.
Kate: I mean, I don’t want to say this, but I like you so much.
Amanda: I like so much, Kate, will you be my friend? Can you come to my table?
Kate: Be right there. I like it so much! Thank you for the kindness and the courage it takes to let me into the world that you’ve been in, and also just to see how just some of the things that we think hold us up keep us apart. And this has been a really powerful conversation for me. Maybe you were listening today and thinking, oh man, I have spent so much time taking care of other people and neglecting myself. Well, maybe today is the reminder then to do the hard thing. Like make the appointment you’re scared of or take care of that symptom that you’ve been ignoring or schedule your annual exam because you, my love, are worth it. Or maybe you’re listening and thought, wow, must be nice. Must be nice to have people you can turn to to ask for help. And hon, just first of all, I hear you. The social fabric of our lives has continued to disintegrate and it means people are feeling lonelier and lonelier. So that isn’t your imagination. But I do have a couple next steps for you and I’m borrowing them from my friend, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is on a mission to make people feel more connected. Okay, here’s what he says. He challenges everyone to do five actions over the next five days that will help you connect with someone else. That’s it. Five things over five days. Maybe you can start by expressing gratitude to someone who’s made an impact in your life or by extending support to someone you know who’s going through a hard time or by asking for specific help you need and inviting others to join your table of connection or stop to actually talk to a neighbor you pass by regularly or maybe Join an online support group for people who get the thing that you’re going through. So yes, the world is disconnected, but that does not have to be the end of the story. You, my glorious friend, are worth knowing, worth seeing, worth supporting, and we are all better when we practice interdependence. Yes, even if it means that I have to let you witness me in my struggle. And even if that struggle is trying to figure out how to get the trash bag into the stupid trash can. Or maybe I can let people witness the big stuff too. Next time, my dears, by the time you hear me next, I want you to go out and do your hard things. Reach out, connect, and then say yes when other people make those bids for connection too. Together we can press against the story that tells us that only independent people are winning and we can practice something a little more human instead. That was my pep talk for you. I adore you. Hey, and before I go, this is just a favor, but if you have a second, if you wouldn’t mind leaving a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts, it’s just one of those things that makes a big difference for whether other people find the show. So thank you, thank you. And a big thank you to our funding partners, Lilly Endowment, Duke Endowment and Duke Divinity School. And to the team behind everything happening at Everything Happens, Jess Ritchie, Harriet Putman, Keith Weston, Baiz Hoen, Gwen Heginbotham, Brenda Thompson, Iris Greene, Hailie Durrett, Anne Herring, Hope Anderson, Kristen Balzer, Elia Zario, Catherine Smith, and Megan Crunkleton. This is Everything Happens with me, Kate Bowler.
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