Andrea Gibson

speaker

930 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2025 last heard 3 Mar

Andrea Gibson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 1.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

We Can Do Hard Things · The Bravest Conversation We’ve Had: Andrea Gibson (Best Of) · 26 Jan 2025 podcast

And people are like, this is God, all of that mix of stuff. And I feel like I have the best friends in the world and it depends on the day how, um, and how they're doing. I have four people who, who I call my best friends and who they call me their best friend. And, um, and those four people are going through it right now. I'm pretty hard. Um,

And it's helpful for me when they tell me that because it helps me to help right now. I think that's also part of the reason why I wanted to do this my whole career. When I started writing about anything I'd been through, whether it was sexual assault or anything, I thought, oh, I read a poem about it and it helps people. Then that thing didn't feel like a wound in my life in the same way.

And so I still, it feels, I need that from my friends. You know, my friend came over the other day and she's going through a lot of relationship troubles. And I'm like, I don't want to talk about cancer. What can we talk about about this very big thing going on in your life? Because these things are still very big, you know?

We have this idea culturally that cancer trumps everything, but... But the common cold also sucks. Common cold, God, is terrible. My friends... They're just wanting to be around me all the time. I'm still having, I'm still in a place where I'm wanting most of my time to be alone or with Meg. But I just yesterday, I reached out to my whole larger friend group, which was like 120 people.

And those 120 people are close friends. I don't doubt that. And so I'm thinking of ways to have them all come visit. And they're also helping in the ways where I'll say this because I imagine there will be people listening to this who are going through cancer or other medical things.

One of the mistakes that I think that I made in the very beginning of my treatment was not understanding that I was the one in control, that I was the one that was making the decision to do chemo. And so now I'm at this place where I'm like, it is all mine. Like I am making from now on, whatever I choose, these are my decisions and that's empowering to me.

But part of that is also my friends are on my team with that. And I'm like, okay, so I have like three friends right now researching this one alternative treatment, three friends researching, um, the side effects of this one, uh, chemotherapy drug that I'm considering doing. So they're all helping in those ways. And then another friend is organizing, um,

a number of my friends to come over and do this breath work thing on Saturday morning so I can learn how to breathe, which is actually something I don't think I've ever known how to do.

And then I was like, oh my God, I do. Clinton, this has given me chills. I have a story to tell you after this, but please keep telling me because this is so serendipitous. I keep telling.

I love that.

So I know exactly what you're talking about with the claw because my friend sent me a video the other day and she's like, so this is the breath work that we're going to do on Saturday. And so you might want to try it out. And I'm like, okay. So I sat down and I'm doing it. And all of a sudden I, and I'm doing it alone and my hand starts doing this.

And then I stop and I text her and I'm like, this thing is happening. Also, I can't feel my face or my feet. And she's like, okay, so you might want support. You know, this might be something that's healthiest to do guided because, and I said, you know what, if it were any other time in my life, maybe, but if I'm afraid of this, then I'm not going to be able to die. I'm like, I'm going for it.

So anyway, I kept doing it. And the claw was happening. It was so intense. And then in the middle of that, I realized, so I'll back up and say, the only way I could tell that I have cancer is I have a small tumor on my liver that I can feel, I can feel nagging up against my rib. And when I feel into that, I can think, okay, as you start to grow, that's going to be hard.

That's going to be painful. The doctor had already tried to offer me pain pills for it, which because of my sister, I'm phobic of, so I'm pushing that away as far as possible. But as soon as that started happening, where I'm feeling all of this stuff and my hands are crumbling, all of a sudden I realized something I hadn't done, which was I hadn't ever loved the cancer.

And I could feel in my whole being how badly I needed to do that. And it was so amazing because ever since then, and I believe this is the source of any moment of joy I have right now, is that whenever I feel this, you know, I'm pressing on my side right now as I'm saying this, I send love and I can feel it. And I talk to it and I'm like, who are you?

And what that has done to me, it has put me in a state where I'm not in fight or flight because this thing that is there, to send it love. And when I send it love, Then I all of a sudden realized that there is nothing in this world I can't send love to. And then I feel empowered. So in my just few minutes of doing that with curl, so the curled hands thing is a thing. I love hearing that.

So maybe Saturday I'll see the portal with all the faces.

What did you see, Abby?

Yeah. I feel that way with my folks too. And, and the way I think it is, I'm just weirder. I'm weirder than my folks. Yeah.

But that's amazing that you had two beautiful experiences that were different like that. And I've been in that situation before. And in my twenties, when I would take psychedelics where I'd be laughing and somebody was sobbing and, but it somehow works in that state.

Showing 881–900 of 930 · page 45 of 47