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Doyle keeps 'Untamed' conversation going in journal, podcast

FILE - Abby Wambach, left, and Glennon Doyle appear at the Hello Sunshine Video on Demand channel launch in Los Angeles on Aug. 6, 2018. Doyle is the author of the best-selling memoirs, including, Untamed. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) (Jordan Strauss, 2018 Invision)

Glennon Doyle hates giving advice. Nor does she want to be referred to as a self-help guru or any other woo-woo spiritual title. The author of best-selling memoirs including ā€œUntamedā€ says she just wants to help others find the freedom she found ā€œuntamingā€ herself.

ā€œThatā€™s how we all got in this mess in the first place, by following somebody elseā€™s idea of what we should be,ā€ she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. ā€œWeā€™re now following Glennonā€™s ideas? Thatā€™s the opposite of what Iā€™m trying to do.ā€

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When Doyle ā€œblew upā€ her life, as she calls it, divorcing her husband and father of their three children to marry Olympic gold medal soccer star Abby Wambach, she hit a nerve with millions. The Christian mommy blogger detailed her fears of rejection, of disappointing the church and her parents, and of losing the life she thought she was supposed to live in order to live the life she wanted.

ā€œIt was the most alive Iā€™d ever been,ā€ the 45-year-old Doyle said.

Her unburdening has also helped her tap into the zeitgeist of overburdened women from all walks of life. People magazine hailed her as the ā€œpatron saint of female empowerment." ā€œUntamedā€ was Audibleā€™s most-listened-to audiobook in 2020. Oprah, Adele, Kelly Clarkson and other celebrities have called her work life-changing.

Doyle extended the conversation to podcasting in May, launching ā€œWe Can Do Hard Things,ā€ which was No. 1 on Apple's list of top new shows.

Still, women frequently approached her on her exercise walks, messaged her on social media, and pulled her aside at events, asking the same question.

ā€œPeople would ask, ā€˜OK, thatā€™s great that you got yourself untamed,'ā€ she said. 'Thatā€™s great that you were able to do that. How do I do that'?"

So Doyle recently released a companion journal to ā€œUntamed.ā€ She wanted to call it ā€œThe Experiment,ā€ emphasizing that no blueprint exists and no one has the answers for someone elseā€™s life, but publishers scrapped it.

ā€œGet Untamed: The Journal" has the tagline ā€œHow to quit pleasing and start living,ā€ which has become an anthem among her fans. ā€œI have stopped asking people for directions to places they've never been. There is no map. We are all pioneers,ā€ she writes.

Before ā€œUntamedā€ dropped in March 2020, amid the early unknowns of COVID-19, her initial reaction was to wait and release it later.

But the forced time out proved fertile ground for her message of stillness, of tuning out the noise and listening to yourself, ā€œyour knowing,ā€ she calls it.

ā€œBeing still is the hardest thing in the whole world," she says.

"The truth is in the stillness, the stuff we havenā€™t resolved yet is in the stillness, the conversations we are avoiding is in the stillness, all of our trauma is in the stillness,ā€ she said. ā€œWe live in a culture that tells us we canā€™t live in stillness.ā€

Doyle says she numbed out for years, using food and alcohol to cope with an unhappy marriage and strict evangelical upbringing, trying to do all the right things, being a good church wife, teacher and mother. She buried her desires, thinking she was sacrificing for her children, until she realized she was living a life she wouldn't want for her own daughter.

ā€œMommy martrydom," she said, can be a heavy burden to pass on to children.

ā€œWeā€™re teaching them love is self-denial, love is burying yourself and then moping about it,ā€ she said. ā€œItā€™s having a mom who will not allow herself to live. If thereā€™s anything ā€˜Untamedā€™ is doing, I hope itā€™s showing that martyrdom motherhood is not a badge of honor.ā€

Among her unconventional self-revelations embraced by exhausted women: Itā€™s OK to quit or take a nap. She rarely replies to texts. Divorce isnā€™t always bad. Sometimes, losing everything is actually the step to freeing yourself.

Doyle hopes the pandemic and journal will encourage others to do some uncomfortable self-examination.

ā€œSome of us found our peace for the first time. I have never been more comfortable in my own skin," she recently said on her podcast.

ā€œThe constant going out in front of other human beings, the constant being out in all of these social situations... that was constantly jarring to me.ā€

Despite her successes, Doyle says her life is messy like everyone's, filled with fights, tears and self-doubts.

She tries to meditate for 20 minutes daily, saying it helps ā€œtake the edge off,ā€ or go for a walk to work out her thoughts. But she admits without shame that she only does it about half the time because working, mothering and wife-ing gets hectic.

So what about those days when she canā€™t get it all done?

ā€œIā€™m really over beating myself up over everything.ā€

Instead, she calls quitting a spiritual practice.

ā€œI wake up in the morning and I look forward to quitting,ā€ she said in a recent podcast, adding that might be zoning out with TV and eating comforting carbs.

ā€œIf I didnā€™t quit every single day, I wouldn't start again.ā€


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