We Can Do Hard Things

Wow. This feels good. After years of fear, exhaustion, and wondering whether anything we do can make a difference, the American people just delivered a message. And it was LOUD.

Today, we're celebrating the extraordinary blue wave that swept across the country—and digging into what it means for our democracy, our future, and our power. We're talking about:

Because this election wasn't just about the people who won on Tuesday. It was about the millions of people who refused to give up long before winning seemed possible. 

Today, we celebrate them. We celebrate all of us. And we talk about what comes next.  

To listen to the episodes we reference:  

Stacey Abrams on Midterms: What's Going to Happen? and

The Real Minority Rule Conspiracy | Amanda with Rep. Justin J. Pearson

Dr. Orna Guralnik of Couples Therapy joins Glennon, Abby, and Amanda to reveal what’s really underneath our most maddening relationship fights—and how the differences we keep trying to eliminate might actually be the key to growing closer.

- What we’re really fighting about when we fight about the dishwasher;

- Why we can stop debating whether something is a “want” or a “need”—and what to ask instead;

- How to turn the thing that most frustrates you about your partner into an opportunity for growth;

- Why every relationship is its own “mini political system”; and

- What to do when you feel invisible to your partner.

About Dr. Guralnik:

Dr. Orna Guralnik is a psychoanalyst and writer, who serves on the faculty of NYU PostDoc, National Institute for the Psychotherapies, the Stephen Mitchel Center, and the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Studies in Gender & Sexuality. Her writing centers on the intersection of psychoanalysis, dissociation, and cultural studies. She has completed the filming of several seasons of Showtime’s documentary series Couples Therapy. 

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

Why do so many of us feel responsible for everyone else's happiness while struggling to believe we're enough? Psychotherapist and Father Wound author Terri Cole joins us to uncover how our relationships with our fathers shape our self-worth, relationships, and the roles we play long into adulthood—and how to finally break free.

- The surprising signs you may have a father wound—even if you had a great dad.

- Why perfectionism, people-pleasing, and hyper-independence may be rooted in childhood.

- How we learn to earn love instead of simply receiving it.

- Why so many women reach a breaking point in midlife.

- How to stop managing everyone else and start living your own life.

More with Terri Cole: 

Ep 402. Are You A High Functioning Codependent? Find Out with Terri Cole 

About Terri: 

Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist and global relationship and empowerment expert and the author of Boundary Boss and Too Much!

For over two decades, Terri has worked with a diverse group of clients that includes everyone from stay-at-home moms to celebrities and Fortune 500 CEOs. She has a gift for making complex psychological concepts accessible and actionable so that clients and students achieve sustainable change.

She inspires over a million people weekly through her blog, social media platform, signature courses, and her popular podcast, The Terri Cole Show.  

Her new book, Father Wound: Break Unhealthy Patterns to Reclaim Your Worth and Power, is available on November 17.

Enroll in Terri’s course: Understand & Transform Your Father Wound. 

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

What does it look like to keep showing up when the world gives you every reason to disappear?

Writer and artist Chanel Miller joins us for an unforgettable conversation about depression, healing, and her definition of success: refusing perfection and exhaustion, and continuing to show up as exactly who she is.

- Chanel’s brilliant way of understanding depression: seeing life through “toilet paper roll binoculars”—and why we shouldn’t make big decisions when our vision has narrowed;

- Why healing might sometimes be the permission to finally let go and move forward;

- How Chanel learned that presence—not perfection—is success;

- Why refusing to give up can itself be an act of resistance; and

- The extraordinary moment Chanel returned to Stanford, was “held in sound,” and heard the message that set her free: We got it. You can go now.

About Chanel: 

Chanel Miller is a writer and artist who received her BA in Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her critically acclaimed memoir, KNOW MY NAME, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner, as well as a best book of 2019 in Time, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, NPR, and People, among others. She is a 2019 Time Next 100 honoree and a 2016 Glamour Woman of the Year honoree under her pseudonym, “Emily Doe.”

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

The most shocking thing about the Cornell and LSU sexual assault cases? That Cornell and LSU delivered more substantial results to those survivors than that afforded to 95% of college women brave enough to report their assaults to Universities.  

So what actually happens when a student reports a sexual assault to their university?

Amanda sits down with sociologist and On the Wrong Side author Dr. Nicole Bedera—the researcher who spent a year embedded inside a university Title IX system—to pull back the curtain on the process we tell our kids to trust.

They reveal:

- How the vast majority of sexual assault reports lead to absolutely nothing;

- The crucial difference between filing a report and a formal complaint;

- The profound conflict of interest at the heart of a system run by the same institution whose reputation, liability, and finances are threatened by what it uncovers; 

- What specific questions we should ask to actually find out if a college is a safer place to send our child; and

- Most importantly: If your child calls from college and tells you they have been sexually assaulted, who should you to talk to first, what specific things should you do, and what should you not do?

This episode is for every parent with a child in college, every student heading there, and  anyone who cares about keeping our children safe.

About Nicole Bedera, Ph.D.:

Nicole Bedera, Ph.D. is a sociologist and author of the book On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence. Her research broadly focuses on how our social structures contribute to survivors’ trauma and make sexual violence more likely to occur in the future. Her work has been featured in many popular media outlets, including The New York Times, NPR, Time Magazine, and Teen Vogue. Nicole puts her work into practice as an affiliated educator at the Center for Institutional Courage, as a co-founder of Beyond Compliance Consulting, and as a co-founder of the nonprofit The Survivor Alumni Network. 

Read more from Nicole Bedera:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/daughter-advice-sexual-assault-college.html

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

After The Episode That Wasn’t, we received nearly 1,000 voicemails in two days from women saying: This is my life at work. So we invited Emmy and Peabody Award-winning sports journalist Sarah Spain to talk about what actually works when you’re navigating sexism, harassment, and power on the job.

- Why telling women to “just report it” isn’t enough;

- The difference between what’s right and what actually works;

- Why women learn to laugh off behavior that isn’t funny;

- What to do when you finally have enough power to speak up for someone else; and

- Sarah’s reminder: You’re not making it awkward. The person who did the harmful thing already did that.

Listen to Ep 147 The Episode That Wasn’t here.

About Sarah: 

Sarah Spain is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning sports journalist. In her 12+ years at ESPN she has worked as a radio and podcast host, writer and TV analyst. She's a minority owner of the Chicago Red Stars of the NWSL, a co-founder of “Hear The Cheers,” which provides hearing aids and equipment to kids so they can continue participating in sports, and is on the board of Embarc, a program that provides community-driven experiences and learning opportunities to low-income Chicago high school students. 

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

Stefanie Fox, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, joins Glennon, Abby, and Amanda for an urgent, eye-opening conversation about the fight for Palestinian freedom, the powerful forces keeping America complicit, and what each of us can do to make a difference.  Glennon also shares the story behind her recent arrest outside the United Nations and the unexpected hope she's found in taking action.

- Why America continues to fund and arm Israel—and who profits.

- What Zionism and anti-Zionism mean, and how to recognize and fight antisemitism.

- How political pressure, money, and fear are used to silence support for Palestine.

- How to move beyond outrage and despair into meaningful, collective action.

More about Jewish Voice for Peace: 

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

About Stefanie: 

Stefanie Fox is the Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a grassroots membership organization that organizes and mobilizes hundreds of thousands of Jews into solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle and a vision of Judaism beyond Zionism. Stefanie joined JVP in 2009 as the organization’s first National Organizer (when the organization had six chapters and a few hundred members) and played multiple roles as part of the team that grew the organization into one of the largest progressive Jewish organizations in the world. Prior to JVP, Stefanie came up as a grassroots organizer, educator, and public health practitioner inside the global AIDS movement of the early 2000s, and spent about a decade in local and issue-based community organizing toward racial and economic justice before joining JVP full-time. 

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

What does it take to survive the unimaginable—and then build a life filled with joy?

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Allison Russell shares how she survived childhood abuse, found lifelines in music and chosen family, and learned to put down the pain she’d been carrying and return to her body, her joy, and herself.

- How to stop carrying the pain of what happened to you

- Why chosen family can change—and even save—your life

- How to break cycles so your children inherit something different

- The artists who showed Allison that another life was possible

- Why healing doesn’t mean becoming an “unmarked page”

About Allison:

Allison Russell has spent her career in multiple bands, including Po’ Girl, Our Native Daughters and Birds of Chicago. After a career spent as a gifted multi-instrumentalist, backing numerous other artists, she finally dared to release her solo project in 2021. She made her Opry debut and appeared at the Country Music Hall of Fame and performed at the 2022 GRAMMY’s Premiere Ceremony.

In addition to her four GRAMMY nominations, she has earned three 2022 Americana Award nominations and a win for Album of the Year, two International Folk Music Award wins, a 2022 Juno nomination for ‘Songwriter of the Year,’ and her first-ever Juno Award win for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year. Russell received two 2021 Americana Awards nominations, won three Canadian Folk Music Awards, two UK Americana Music Awards, and more. She was nominated for Song of the Year and Artist of the Year for the 2023 Americana Awards. 

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

If you don’t feel like yourself lately, it might not be stress, aging, or “all in your head.” Dr. Rachel Rubin tells us what every woman deserves to know about perimenopause, menopause, and the hormones that can affect everything from our sleep and mood to our brains, bodies, relationships, and sex lives.

- The surprising signs of perimenopause—and how early they can start

- Why a “normal” hormone test doesn’t mean you’re not in perimenopause

- What doctors were never taught about menopause

- The truth about HRT—and why generations of women were taught to fear hormones

- Estrogen, progesterone & testosterone: what each actually does

- How to advocate for the care you need to feel like yourself again

Find more information at https://www.rachelrubinmd.com/ and sign up for Dr. Rubin’s newsletter here. 

About Dr. Rubin: 

Dr. Rachel Rubin is a board-certified urologist and sexual medicine specialist who is changing the way we talk about menopause, hormones, and sexual health — especially the things women have historically been told to accept, endure, or simply stop talking about. She practices in the Washington, D.C., area as well as Los Angeles and is an Assistant Professor of Urology at Georgetown University. A nationally recognized educator, researcher, and advocate, Dr. Rubin has become a leading voice for greater awareness and access to treatments like vaginal estrogen and testosterone use in menopausal women. She is known for making complicated science understandable — and beloved for telling the truth about women’s health, which medicine has too often failed to say.

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

What if the voice telling you there’s something wrong with your body…isn’t actually yours?

Carson Tueller joins us for a radically freeing conversation about disability, desire, and refusing to postpone your life until your body becomes something else. After an accident left him paralyzed from the chest down at 23, Carson discovered that much of his suffering wasn’t coming from his body—but from the stories the world had taught him to believe about it.

- The question from Carson’s sister that changed the story of his life;

- Why your deepest Self will never tell you that you’re broken;

- What ableism teaches all of us about which bodies are “good” bodies;

- Why Carson says disability led him to the best sex of his life; and

- How to stop waiting for your body to change—and start living now.

About Carson: 

Carson Tueller is a coach, speaker and activist whose work provides people with the tools they need to live authentic, fulfilling, and powerful lives. He identifies as queer and disabled. Carson grew up as a Mormon in a military family moving around a lot before settling in Utah. His own journey into powerful living began in 2013 when, in the same year, he came out, and was then injured in an accident that paralyzed him from the chest down. Since then, Carson has brought his work to international nonprofits and presidential campaigns – and when he isn’t coaching or speaking, Carson can be found at the gym, reading non-fiction, or playing Pokemon with his niece and nephews.

Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: 

Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠