Untamed

by Glennon Doyle

  * * *

  Had these wise storytellers lived in modern America, they might point to a poor, black transgender woman or an asylum-seeking toddler alone in a detainment center and say: God is in this one.

  This one—the one on the outermost ring of the rankings we’ve made up about who matters. This one—the one farthest from whom we have centered.

  This one is made of our same flesh, blood, and spirit.

  When we hurt her, we hurt our own kin.

  This one is One of us.

  This one is Us.

  So let us protect her. Let us bring her gifts and kneel in front of her. Let us fight for her and her family to have every good thing we want for ourselves and our families. Let us love this one as we love ourselves.

  The point of this story was never that This One is more God than the rest. The point is that if we can find good in those we’ve been trained to see as bad, if we can find worth in those we’ve been conditioned to see as worthless, if we can find ourselves in those we’ve been indoctrinated to see as other, then we become unable to hurt them. When we stop hurting them, we stop hurting ourselves. When we stop hurting ourselves, we begin to heal.

  * * *

  The Jesus idea is that justice casts the widest net possible so that every last one of us is inside. Then there are no others—there is only Us. Inside one net we are free from our cages of fear and hate and, instead, bound to one another. The revolutionary idea that every last one of us is both held and free: That is our salvation.

  Glennon, you refer to God as “she”—why do you believe that God’s a female?”

  I don’t. I think it’s ridiculous to think of God as anything that could possibly be gendered. But as long as the expression of God as female is unimaginable to many while the expression of God as male feels perfectly acceptable—and as long as women continue to be undervalued and abused and controlled here on Earth—I’ll keep using it.

  I received an email recently from an old acquaintance at that church I left.

  It said, “Can I ask you something? I know that you and Abby love each other so much. It’s really something. At the same time, I still believe that gayness is wrong. I want to be able to love you unconditionally—but I’d have to abandon my beliefs. What am I supposed to do with this…God conflict?”

  I felt for her. She was saying “I want to be free to love you, but I’m caged by my beliefs.”

  I wrote this back:

  First of all, thank you for knowing that you have a choice to make. Thank you for not landing on: I love you, but…We know that Love has no buts. If you want to change me, you do not love me. If you feel warm toward me but also believe I’m going to burn in hell, you do not love me. If you wish me well but vote against my family being protected by the law, you do not love me. Thank you for understanding that to love me as yourself means to want for me and for my family every good thing you want for yourself and your family. Anything less than that is less than love. So, yes. I agree that you have a choice to make. You have to choose between loving me and keeping your beliefs. Thank you for being intellectually honest about that.

  Second: I understand this conflict because I’ve experienced it. I still do. For a while I felt scared because I thought the God conflict was me challenging God. Now I know that it was God in me, challenging religion. It was my true self awakening and saying: Wait. This thing I have been taught to believe about God, about myself, about others—it doesn’t fit with what I know from my roots about love. What do I do? Do I reject what I know from my roots or what I was taught to believe?

  I can only tell you what I have come to know for myself.

  Returning to ourselves is confusing at first. It’s not as simple as listening for the voices inside of us. Because sometimes the voices inside of us, which we’ve assumed speak Truth, are just the voices of human beings who told us what to believe. Often the internal voice telling us who God is and what God approves of is not God; it’s our indoctrination. It’s an echo of the voice of a teacher, a parent, a preacher—someone who has claimed to represent God to us. Many of those people have been well meaning, and others have only sought to control us. Either way, not a single one of them has been God’s appointed spokesperson. Not a single one of them has more God in her than you do. There is no church that owns God. There is no religion that owns God. There are no gatekeepers. None of this is that easy. There is no outsourcing your faith. There is just you and God.

  Some of the hardest and most important work of our lives is learning to separate the voices of teachers from wisdom, propaganda from truth, fear from love and in this case: the voices of God’s self-appointed representatives from the voice of God Herself.

  When choosing between something you Know and something other people taught you to believe, choose what you Know. As Whitman said, “Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul.”

  Having the courage to dismiss what insults your soul is a matter of life or death. If those who claim to speak for God or Truth can convince you to believe instead of Know, to live from their rules instead of your roots, to trust the voices of middlemen instead of the still, small voice inside you—then they control you. If they can get you to mistrust yourself—to stop feeling, deny knowing, quit imagining—and instead rely only on them, then they can get you to act against your own soul. If that happens, they can get you to follow them, vote with them, condemn for them, even kill for them—all in the name of this God who is constantly whispering to you: That is not exactly it.

  Perhaps the God conflict is not just about God. Perhaps it is God. Listen deep.

  Good art originates not from the desire to show off but from the desire to show yourself. Good art always comes from our desperate desire to breathe, to be seen, to be loved. In everyday life, we are used to seeing only the shiny outer layer of folks. Art makes us less lonely because it always comes from the desperate center of the artist—and each of our centers is desperate. That’s why good art is such a relief.

  People often tell me that my writing feels like a relief. What they feel next is a desire to respond to my offering by telling me their story. For many years I’d stay for hours after my speaking events while one woman after another touched my arm, saying, “I just need to tell you this…”

  Eventually I opened a post office box and promised people that if they wrote down their stories, I’d read them all. Each week, letters pour in. Boxes of letters are piled up in my bedroom and office. I imagine I’ll be reading them until I’m ninety. A few times a week I put down my phone and turn off the news, snuggle up in bed, and read letters. It is always such a relief. Ah, yes. This is what people are like. We are all so fucked up and so magical. Life is so brutal and beautiful. Life is brutiful. For all of us. I remember now. If you want to get jaded and numb, watch the news. If you want to stay human, read letters. When trying to understand humanity, seek out firsthand accounts.

  One night, surrounded by letters that my sister and I had been reading for hours, we looked at the pile and thought: Many of these people have more than enough. Many don’t have enough. All of these people are hungry for purpose and connection. Let’s be the bridge between them. We decided to start Together Rising. That’s how I became what they call a philanthropist.

  Since Together Rising was founded eight years ago, our five-woman board and fierce volunteers have spent day and night frantically and relentlessly connecting suffering people with every resource within our grasp: money, service, sisterhood, hope. Since we connect with every person we serve, we’ve learned firsthand that folks are generally doing the best they can. Yet so many still can’t put food on the table or get medical care for their sick mothers or keep the heat on or secure a safe space to raise their children. Every night we’d go to bed wondering: Why? Why are all of these people who are trying so hard—still hurting so badly?
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br />   And then one day, I read this:

  There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

  —Archbishop Desmond Tutu

  When I started looking upstream, I learned that where there is great suffering, there is often great profit. Now when I encounter someone who is struggling to stay afloat, I know to first ask, “How can I help you right now?” Then, when she is safe and dry, to ask, “What institution or person is benefiting from your suffering?”

  Every philanthropist, if she is paying attention, eventually becomes an activist. If we do not, we risk becoming codependent with power—saving the system’s victims while the system collects the profits, then pats us on the head for our service. We become injustice’s foot soldiers.

  In order to avoid being complicit with those upstream, we must become the people of And/Both. We must commit to pulling our brothers and sisters out of the river and also commit to going upstream to identify, confront, and hold accountable those who are pushing them in.

  We help parents bury their babies who were victims of gun violence. And we go upstream to fight the gun manufacturers and politicians who profit from their children’s deaths.

  We step into the gap to sustain moms who are raising families with imprisoned dads. And we go upstream to dismantle the injustice of mass incarceration.

  We fund recovery programs for those suffering from opioid addiction. And we go upstream to rail against the system that enables Big Pharma and corrupt doctors to get richer every time another kid gets hooked.

  We provide shelter and mentoring for LGBTQ homeless kids. And we go upstream to renounce the religious-based bigotry, family rejection, and homophobic policies that make LGBTQ kids more than twice as likely as their straight or cisgender peers to experience homelessness.

  We help struggling veterans get the PTSD treatment they need and deserve, and we go upstream to confront the military-industrial complex, which is so zealous to send our soldiers to war and so willing to abandon them when they return.

  If we are to create a truer, more beautiful world, we must be the people of And/Both. Let’s keep pulling folks out of the river forever. And every single day, let’s look upstream and give living hell to the ones pushing them in.

  My friend and I are lying on the couch, marveling, crying, and laughing about all we’ve let burn and rebuilt during the past couple years of our lives. When I say, “Then I left my family,” she stops laughing.

  She says, “Don’t say that. Don’t say things about yourself that aren’t true. You didn’t leave your family. Not for a single moment. You didn’t even leave your husband, for God’s sake. You left your marriage. That’s it. That’s what you left. And that’s what you had to leave to create your true family. Please don’t ever let me hear you say ‘I left my family’ again. Be careful with the stories you tell about yourself.”

  I am a sensitive, introverted woman, which means that I love humanity but actual human beings are tricky for me. I love people but not in person. For example, I would die for you but not, like…meet you for coffee. I became a writer so I could stay at home alone in my pajamas, reading and writing about the importance of human connection and community. It is an almost perfect existence. Except that every so often, while I’m thinking my thoughts, writing my words, living in my favorite spot—which is deep inside my own head—something stunning happens: A sirenlike noise tears through my home. I freeze.

  It takes me a solid minute to understand: The siren is the doorbell. A person is ringing my doorbell. I run out of my office to find my children also stunned, frozen, and waiting for direction about how to respond to this imminent home invasion. We stare at each other, count bodies, and collectively cycle through the five stages of doorbell grief:

  Denial: This cannot be happening. ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO BE IN THIS HOUSE ARE ALREADY IN THIS HOUSE. Maybe it was the TV. IS THE TV ON?

  Anger: WHO DOES THIS? WHAT KIND OF BOUNDARYLESS AGGRESSOR RINGS SOMEONE’S DOORBELL IN BROAD DAYLIGHT?

  Bargaining: Don’t move, don’t breathe—maybe they’ll go away.

  Depression: Why? Why us? Why anyone? Why is life so hard?

  Acceptance: Damnit to hell. You—the little one—we volunteer you. Put on some pants, act normal, and answer the door.

  It’s dramatic, but the door always gets answered. If the kids aren’t home, I’ll even answer it myself. Is this because I remember that adulting requires door answering? Of course not. I answer the door because of the sliver of hope in my heart that if I open the door, there might be a package waiting for me. A package!

  When I got sober, I learned that hard feelings are doorbells that interrupt me, send me into a panic, and then leave me with an exciting package. Sobriety is a decision to stop numbing and blaming away hard feelings and to start answering the door. So when I quit drinking, I began allowing my feelings to disturb me. This was scary, because I had always assumed that my feelings were so big and powerful that they would stay forever and eventually kill me. But my hard feelings did not stay forever, and they did not kill me. Instead, they came and went, and afterward I was left with something I didn’t have before. That something was self-knowledge.

  Hard feelings rang my bell and then left me with a package filled with brand-spanking-new information about myself. This new information was always exactly what I needed to know about myself to take the next step in my life with confidence and creativity. It turned out that what I needed most was inside the one place I’d been running from my entire life: pain. Everything I needed to know next was inside the discomfort of now.

  As I practiced allowing my hard feelings to come and stay as long as they needed to, I got to know myself. The reward for enduring hard feelings was finding my potential, my purpose, and my people. I am so grateful. I can’t imagine a greater tragedy than remaining forever unknown to myself. That would be the ultimate self-abandonment. So I have become unafraid of my own feelings. Now when hard feelings ring the bell, I put on my big-girl pants and answer the door.

  anger

  For years after I found out about my ex-husband’s infidelity, I was deeply angry.

  He did everything that could be asked of a person who has hurt someone. He apologized profusely, began therapy, and was unwaveringly patient. I did all the right things, too. I went to therapy, prayed, committed myself to trying to forgive. Sometimes when I watched him with the children, my anger would fade and I’d feel relieved and hopeful for our future. But every time I tried to make myself physically or emotionally vulnerable to him, rage would flood my body. I’d lash out at him and then shut down and retreat back into myself. This pattern was exhausting and depressing for both of us, but I didn’t know what to do other than wait for forgiveness to eventually be bestowed upon me by the heavens as a reward for my steadfast suffering. I assumed that forgiveness was a matter of time.

  One evening, Craig and I were sitting on opposite sides of our family room couch. He was happily watching TV while I silently fumed at him. Somehow I was able to lift my perspective and look down at both of us. There I was, fired up with fury, and there Craig was, undisturbed and utterly unaware that I was miserable. All the fire was in me. None in him. I thought: How can this anger be about him? He can’t even feel it. Suddenly I felt possessive and protective of my own anger. I thought: This is happening inside my body. If this anger is in me, I am going to assume it is for me. I decided to stop being ashamed and afraid of my anger, to stop being ashamed and afraid of myself.

  From that moment on, whenever anger arose, I practiced staying open and curious. I sat with it. I let it be. My anger and I hung out and listened to each other. I asked my anger questions like “What are you trying to tell me? Not about him, but about me?” I started paying close attention to patterns in my body, be
cause my body often clarifies for me what my mind is too convoluted and hopeful to accept. Bodies won’t lie, even when we beg them to. I noticed that anger flooded my body whenever I opened myself up to Craig emotionally or physically. My anger lifted completely when I watched him with the children. Before I started paying close attention, I thought this meant that I was flip-flopping. But over time I began to understand that my anger wasn’t arbitrary, it was incredibly specific. My anger was repeating, “Glennon: For you, familial intimacy with Craig is safe. Physical and emotional intimacy are not.”

  I knew this. My body knew this. And I had been ignoring what I knew. That is why I was so angry: I was angry at myself. Craig was the one who had strayed, yes, but I was the one who decided, day after day, to stay married, vulnerable, and angry. I was ignoring what I knew, and I was punishing him for forcing me to know it. There was nothing he could do to change what I knew. Maybe the question was no longer “How could he have done this to me?” but “How can I keep doing this to myself?” Maybe instead of forever repeating, “How could he have abandoned me?” I needed to ask, “Why do I keep abandoning myself?”

  Eventually I decided to stop abandoning myself—which meant honoring my anger. I didn’t need to prove to anyone else whether leaving was right or wrong. I didn’t need to justify my anger anymore. What I needed to do was forgive the father of my children. I was able to do that as soon as I divorced him.