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.

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

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

I wasn't, but I think that I realized since telling people that it surprised me that of the fear, I think that there's fear right now in some of my friends. Mm-hmm. to talk to me. But I think, Abby, one of the things that I want to add because of that fear of death, you know, I used to see the word oncology, I mean, even in my 20s, and I would start to have a panic attack if I saw that word.

And one of the things that I think I'll say is that there doesn't seem to be, at first, I thought I was having a very unique experience. And what I've learned is it's not very unique. I was in a cancer group with people and

There was this woman in there who was saying that whenever people ask her if she's out of the woods, she says that she'll never be out of the woods, that there's something beautiful about the woods, that when she finds herself getting further away and further into remission, she almost finds herself putting saplings in her path because there is something that happens. Okay.

So I don't know if y'all have ever, have you taken psychedelics? I'll just tell you.

Yeah. So if you think about it like that, I've experienced this experience like that, where you're thinking about death from the perspective of somebody who's not confronting it directly right now. And there is something that comes along with the actual confronting that holds you in a way that you can't imagine being held right now that I couldn't have imagined until I was there.

And I think that's something that is important to share that like this, what I'm experiencing is, is not in any way unique. The joy that I found in these years isn't unique and not that other people aren't going through other things. Like for some people, it's so rad that they spend the whole time just screaming and raging because maybe they haven't express their anger their whole lives.

And now they're doing that. There's not one right way to do it. But I think the thing that I have learned that I think is probably very common, that the thing in reality often is less terrifying than what we imagine in our minds.

So when I was in the state of bliss that I was in, when I felt completely surrendered. At that point, I felt certain that what I was experiencing was very similar to the death state. I felt this overwhelm of peace. And the thing that left me was need. I stopped needing. And what I mean was, like, even in my relationships, it was they were no longer in my life because I needed them.

They were there because I loved loving. And so what... I'm not certain. I do. I believe we are eternal. I believe right now we have like our consciousness is eternal. And so we have our running minds. And it's really easy to convince myself that my mind is like and how if I don't have my feelings or my mind, how will I have consciousness? But I've tapped into those states at various times.

I think of it as a wildly expansive state. And also, I have no idea. I have no idea. But I feel that we're all eternal.

Oh yeah. Yes. But also my personality. Like when I got diagnosed, I felt like all of a sudden there was a separation where I was watching Andrea walk around And I thought that character is entertaining and really funny. And I became so much funnier because I'm almost watching myself from a distance. And I was so entertained by the personality of Andrea. And I was like, what a weirdo.

And yeah, so just watching personality and humor and laughing and then also the grief. And that's something that I'm just right now, like really diving into the holiness of, of wow. Wow. And I think that I had always been afraid that it would destroy me, that it would be too much. And it isn't too much, but it's a lot and it's precious because it's how much I love this world.

It's how much I love life. everyone in it. I have a friend that's a squirrel. It's how much I love the squirrel. I even love the birds that have decided to make their nest in my basketball hoop. And so I can't play right now and I desperately want to play. I love them too.

yeah you know you would think it would drive us insane that thing and maybe it is but maybe it's just the perspective on it and I know that you know to think about just dissolving um it's it's like whoa but it throws your eyes open like when you think about that it doesn't shut you down you know you're you're just like whoa and I imagine birth feels the same I've

never given birth, but that just, I think of those two things similarly of this, whoa, what is this life? What is all of this? I'm having another hot flash. I'm so excited.

Yes, you asked me to read one and I have one here. That's actually going to argue with everything I just said.

That's so sweet. Thank you for telling me that. So this poem I actually wrote years ago and I wrote it when I was really sick with Lyme disease and I was really struggling to make peace with the body that I was living in.

And it is not actually maybe what I believe spiritually, but my therapist told me that in some spiritual communities, they believe that when a human, when they die, the soul actually longs for the body. And she told me that when I was in a lot of pain and I imagined my soul longing, I couldn't wrap my head around it.

So when I can't wrap my head around something, I try to wrap my heart around it by writing a poem. And so this is called Tincture. Imagine when a human dies, the soul misses the body, actually grieves the loss of its hands and all they could hold, misses the throat closing shy, reading out loud on the first day of school. Imagine the soul misses the stubbed toe, the loose tooth, the funny bone.

The soul still asks, why does the funny bone do that? It's just weird. Imagine the soul misses the thirsty garden cheeks watered by grief, misses how the body could sleep through a dream. What else can sleep through a dream? What else can laugh? What else can wrinkle the smile's autograph? Imagine the soul misses each fallen eyelash waiting to be a wish, misses the wrist screaming away the blade.

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