We Can Do Hard Things

At the end of our first full year together, Glennon, Abby, and Amanda reflect on We Can Do Hard Things, this community, some of their favorite episodes, and they reshare the very first show:

1. The original idea for the podcast and how it’s evolved.

2. Glennon describes how an anxiety attack feels – and the 3 strategies that help her find calm.

3. Amanda shares some special “thank you” messages to Glennon, Abby, and the Pod Squad.

1. Why we should stop expecting people to forgive.

2. Rabbi Danya’s five step-by-step process for repairing a relationship. 

3. What makes a good – and a terrible – apology.

4. What to do (and to not say) if you want to make amends and change.

5. Why repentance is a process that has nothing to do with the one who was hurt.

About Rabbi Ruttenberg:

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is an award-winning author of 8 books, including On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World. She serves as Scholar in Residence at the National Council of Jewish Women, and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Salon, Time, Newsweek, and many other publications.

TW: @TheRaDR

IG: @rabbidanyaruttenberg

Glennon, Abby, Amanda and the Pod Squad share their most brutiful and hilarious holiday stories.

Holiday Expectations are the joy robbers. Here’s how to leave room for yourself, and be sturdy this holiday season (and always).

1. How in our preparation for making things perfect, we leave no room for the peace and joy that is actually in front of us.

2. The opposite revolutions that Glennon and Amanda are having right now – and why they’re at the core the same.

3. The final frontier: How to be who we are wherever we are – and let our people be who they are wherever we are, too.

4. What it felt like for Glennon, Abby, and Amanda to watch Tish’s first live performance on stage.

1. Fortune’s life as a debutante without a couch and her first coming out party. 

2. Fortune’s 21st birthday, and her family’s complicated relationship with Hooters. 

3. The joys and perils of growing up as an 80s kid, and the shock of moving to LA from a small Southern town. 

4. What Fortune was watching when she finally realized she was queer, and how she built community when she realized she was the only gay person she knew. 

5. How she learned to let go of being someone she’s not – and starting living to please herself.

About Fortune: 

Fortune Feimster is a standup comedian, writer, and actor. Her first Netflix special, “Sweet & Salty,” was nominated for a Critics Choice Award, and her new comedy special – “Good Fortune” – is streaming now on Netflix.

Fortune was a writer and panelist on the hit show “Chelsea Lately” and starred in “The Mindy Project”. She has also appeared in “2 Broke Girls,” “The L Word: Generation Q,” “Glee,” and “Life In Pieces”.

TW: @FortuneFeimster

IG: @fortunefeimster

Featuring Luvvie, Reese, Ash+Ali, Sam & Cam.

1. Cutting off contact with family is on a dramatic rise – how to know if there’s hope of repair, or if self-preservation requires distance.  

2. How to have present, productive conversations with our parents about the past.  

3. Why we grieve the loss of a family member even if we know it’s healthiest to cut them out. 

4. Attachment styles, emotional honesty, and the difference between forgiveness and repair. 

5. What to do and say – and what NOT to say – when attempting to reconnect with an estranged loved one.   

About Dr. Atlas:

Dr. Galit Atlas is a psychoanalyst and clinical supervisor in private practice in New York City. Her new book Emotional Inheritance was published in January 2022 and is being translated into 17 languages. She is on the faculty of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. A leader in the field of relational psychoanalysis, Dr. Atlas teaches and lectures throughout the United States and internationally. 

IG: @galit_atlas

Glennon, Abby, Amanda, and Sarah Edmondson continue their conversation: 

1. “Love bombing” and other red flag strategies used by cults to reel people in.  

2. The jarring similarities between cults and abusive relationships – and how in both your best qualities are used against you.

3. What to do if someone you love is pulled into QAnon, 4chan, or another conspiratorial culture.  

4. The moment Sarah realized she had been initiated into a sex pyramid, and how she escaped. 

5. The responsibility she felt – after having been such an avid recruiter – to expose the truth of NXIVM and help take down its leaders.  

CW: Discussion of cult culture and sexual coercion

About Sarah: 

Sarah Edmondson is an actor, podcaster, author, and cult-recovery advocate.

Sarah has starred in a number of TV series, yet she is most recently known for her real-life saga escaping the multi-level marketing company NXIVM – and DOS, a “secret sisterhood” within NXIVM – which can also be seen on HBO’s The Vow. Sarah’s memoir Scarred shares her true story from the moment she joined NXIVM, to her harrowing fight to get out and bring its founder to justice. Sarah co-hosts the podcast A Little Bit Culty with her husband Anthony ‘Nippy’ Ames, and lives in Atlanta with her husband and two sons.

TW: @sarahjedmondson

IG: @sarahedmondson

Sarah’s resource page: https://www.sarahedmondson.com/resources

Steven Hassan’s BITE model: https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/

1. How attending a personal development training at a Holiday Inn led to Sarah being branded in a sex "secret sisterhood" initiation ceremony.

2. Her path from top recruiter to the whistleblower who helped take down the cult and its leader Keith Ranieri. 

3. Why we’re all susceptible to cult culture – the need for belonging, the temptation of simplification, and how we’re trained to deny our gut instincts.

CW: Discussion of cult culture and sexual coercion

About Sarah: 

Sarah Edmondson is an actor, podcaster, author, and cult-recovery advocate.

Sarah has starred in a number of TV series, yet she is most recently known for her real-life saga escaping the multi-level marketing company NXIVM – and DOS, a “secret sisterhood” within NXIVM – which can also be seen on HBO’s The Vow. Sarah’s memoir Scarred shares her true story from the moment she joined NXIVM, to her harrowing fight to get out and bring its founder to justice. Sarah co-hosts the podcast A Little Bit Culty with her husband Anthony ‘Nippy’ Ames, and lives in Atlanta with her husband and two sons.

TW: @sarahjedmondson

IG: @sarahedmondson

Sarah’s resource page: https://www.sarahedmondson.com/resources

Steven Hassan’s BITE model: https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/

1. Why she left her body as a child and how she finally reintegrated 50 years later.  

2. How, even as a public warrior for the highest ideals of democracy, she’s never had a democratic marriage – and when she knew she had to leave each one.  

3. Her deepest fear, why she became happiest at 62, and a peek behind the scenes of her 85th birthday party.

4. How, despite coordinated FBI and White House campaigns to vilify her, she’s kept showing up.

5. Ways to get involved in her fight to defend the environment – and an invitation to march with her. Tomorrow in D.C.!   

CW: References to existence of past sexual abuse and ongoing eating disorder recovery

Fire Drill Fridays: https://firedrillfridays.org/

About Jane: 

Jane Fonda is a two-time Academy Award-winning actor (Best Actress in 1971 for Klute and in 1978 for Coming Home), producer, author, activist, and fitness guru. Her career has spanned over 50 years, accumulating a body of film work that includes over 45 films and crucial work on behalf of political causes such as women’s rights, Native Americans, and the environment. She is a seven-time Golden Globe® winner and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021, Stanley Kubrick Excellence in Film Award as part of BAFTA’s Britannia Awards in 2019, AFI Life Achievement Award winner in 2014, and Honorary Palme d’Or honoree in 2007. 

TW: @JaneFonda

IG: @janefonda