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Chapter 1: What personal news does Andrea Gibson share in this episode?
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Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Here are three things you need to know about today's episode. Number one, it's my favorite episode of We Can Do Hard Things that we've ever done.
Oh, wow.
It might be my favorite conversation I've ever had, not even just podcasting, but like ever. You're about to hear the conversation that we had with Andrea Gibson. The origin of this conversation is that my therapist told me to find Andrea's work and I started reading it and it saved me, Abby sent Andrea a DM saying, thank you for what you've done for my wife.
Andrea wrote back and that was the very day that they had received the news from their doctor that they were not going to recover, that their cancer was incurable that day. I believe that day, maybe a
Andrea said to us that what they were most worried about on the day they learned that their cancer was incurable was how to tell the news to their community because their community of people who followed their work is still such an open-hearted, tender, loving group of people who live very close to the marrow of life and Andrea knew how hard this news was going to be for them.
That's who Andrea was. That's what they were thinking about the day they got that news. And so they asked us, Abby and I, if they could come on this podcast and share the news with their community from here.
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Chapter 2: How did Andrea Gibson's diagnosis influence their perspective on life?
And it would just be, I couldn't even imagine trying to come on and pretending that that hadn't happened.
In the email, you said one of the things that you were, this was amazing that this was like your second sentence, but you said you were trying to figure out how and when to talk about it because you have such a,
following of young people, lots of people who struggle with all different kinds of mental health issues, which we also have here in our house and in our pod squad, and that you were trying to figure out how to talk about it in a way that, well, that wouldn't scare the shit out of everybody, right?
Yeah. Right before I got diagnosed, I had decided to write a newsletter called Things That Don't Suck. And then... And this was two years ago. And a couple of weeks later, I got diagnosed and I thought, shit, I'm supposed to write about things that don't suck with this happening. But it was perfect.
My therapist had always told me the only thing we have control over in this life is where we put our attention. So I thought, perfect time to put my attention on what I love about this world, what I am so grateful for. And it was already kind of naturally happening. As soon as I got diagnosed, I had this experience where It's so much to get into.
I don't know if now is the right time, but I had, I guess I'd call, I'm going to try not to be shy about what I call it, but a direct experience of the divine. I grew up in the Baptist church. And then when I came out as queer, I got sort of angsty and left that all behind. But it always had a relationship, I thought, with God in the way of God being love and whatever connects us all.
But when I got diagnosed for the first time in my life, I genuinely surrendered to what was. And that wasn't about giving up for me. Like I went into high active mode in regards to taking care of my body at that time. But surrendering for me felt like trusting the universe.
And as soon as I did that, it was almost like I caught this wave that I recognized as a wave that we were all supposed to be catching throughout our lives of just giving of trust in whatever comes our way and not thinking of the challenges as not God. And something in that moment just opened up. And I felt for the next 11 months was almost in a constant state of bliss.
So anyway, the journey I have been, since I wasn't able to perform, I'm usually on tour most of the year. I just decided to share it all online and share it in my newsletter. And I was mostly sharing what I was discovering about joy. I was living in the state of astonishment and awe. And I credit the fact that my mortality with being the seed of that bliss.
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Chapter 3: What role does community play in Andrea Gibson's journey?
My halo is my bling.
It's bliss. It's aliveness. What was it like when you read that? First of all, I can't believe you read it in a medical portal, but how... Yeah, that's something.
Shit.
Reading it in the medical portal has been an empowering thing for me the last months because when I got news of my last recurrence, at that time I was having my partner read the news for me or take the call for me. And I realized that that was excruciating for me because what I would do was I would see the news on her face and then I would see her take three or four seconds to
to try to process how she would tell me. And I realized I couldn't do that to her anymore. The pain of seeing it on her face first was too hard for me. And I also, there was something that has been disempowering about having a doctor tell me. So that has been the route I have taken. But when I read it in the medical portal, I could feel my heart just pounding through my chest before I opened it.
And when I opened it and I saw it, I never in my life felt my whole being quiet so quickly. It was like all the fear poured out of my body. And I immediately went to grief. And one of the things that I've learned these last two years is I've lived my life with so much anxiety and so much panic and so much fear.
And watching that go away in these last two years, which was wild because I was such a hypochondriac. I mean, a really intense hypochondriac. I wouldn't eat nuts on an airplane out of fear that I would suddenly develop a nut allergy at 32,000 feet. Like it was, it ruled my life.
And you've run out of planes. You've run out of many planes. You're panicking poems. Oh my God, they make me so... planes turning around on the runway to deboard me.
Andrea goes online just to make sure she hasn't accidentally posted nude pictures of themselves and rereads emails 12 times just to make sure there's nothing in the email that could later incriminate for a crime they have not committed.
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Chapter 4: How does Andrea Gibson redefine their relationship with mortality?
when this came in, this knowing, all of a sudden I knew that I was unconditionally loved and it almost felt like it just washed through me and started immediately healing all these wounds. And then in that sense of feeling just unconditionally loved, it was so easy to unconditionally love everyone I was around.
What are your feelings about Christianity and Jesus these days? You know, I've always been a big fan of Jesus. Yeah, big fan. I worship the guy.
Yeah. Yeah, he's rad. So they have changed so much over the years. You know, even when I was really angry and angry at the church and coming out. And I wrote about it once. I said I had to kill my own God to fall in love for the first time. That's what it felt like. I'm like, I'm going to kill my God so I can love this woman. And so I sort of let I didn't identify as a Christian.
Even though I went from the Baptist church to a Catholic college, I was playing for the lady monks, which is just wild. So it's so, it's so queer. It really is.
Yeah.
And for a long time through, like, you know, as I was a young activist, I had Jesus as a role model, as a revolutionary, you know, and I was writing poems about Jesus being a revolutionary. But now when all of this happened and,
Every time I would go to some Buddhist text or watch something online about consciousness, it was so consistently people were, the Buddhist folks were leading me back to Jesus. And talking so much about how the teachings are very, very similar and how the teachings of Christ have been misinterpreted. And to sort of, in many ways, undo our own sense of the God within us all.
And now, yeah, I love Jesus. Meg. Meg, who is like not really a Jesus-y person, has, I have to listen to stuff all night right now to sleep. And so she's like, I hear we were listening to Jesus all last night. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we were.
So what is that? The need to keep the listening and what are you listening to at night? Is it scary to fall asleep?
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Chapter 5: What insights does Andrea share about love and connection?
And so I also live in those worlds and those realms and who knows what is what, but I guess it's the science of love. Maybe I'm not sure. So that's how they are.
Yeah, that's how they are. When you and your partner talk, like what do you decide to do? Do you find yourself living any differently day to day? Do you make plans differently? Are you even in that spot or you're still floaty?
I think one of the strangest things is you expect that to be what happens. Like even when you were writing back and Glennon, your email to me was so kind and it was just like, we can do anything. We don't have to do this podcast. And I think one of the strangest things is you expect everything to just stop or you expect to want it to stop. but life is still life.
And I remember early on when I was talking about my potential death all the time, Meg said to me, you know, baby, you're not a narcissist, but your death is. And it was so true. And then at that time I thought, oh yes, it is. And so, and then I sort of, I'm like, I'm going to branch out a little bit. And since then, it's the world.
And also because I have felt a little bit as if I am not quite in the world the same way ever since I was diagnosed. I feel like I'm in kind of a different realm. And now as I get this news and I'm thinking, okay, it could be that I die soon. There is part of me that wants to be even more worldly. Of like, oh, this humanness, like all of it. So I'm just like, I want to do regular things.
You know, we have house projects and I want to do house projects. You know, I guess other people want to go hikes in Switzerland. I want to paint the closet doors. But mostly it's because I've learned in these last two years how much how much of the richness and the joy and the awe of this life is in such simple, simple things.
Like I got your email and I just was running around the house saying, Meg, I love people. I love people. I love people. And then I was like, what am I going to do without people? One of the other things that happened right after my diagnosis a few days ago was was I noticed I was hanging my head for the first time in two years. And I said to Meg, I'm like, do you notice I'm hanging my head?
And she said, yeah. And I said, it's because I don't want to look up at everything I love. I was afraid to love. I was afraid to love as much as I love right now because I've never in my life loved this much. And it's, I'm so aware of how much courage it's taking in me. to look up and to love and to acknowledge how much there is to love.
And Meg, oh my God, I'm bombarding her with, I love you, I love you, I love you, you're a dreamboat, you're a dreamboat. And then also we'll just be going on or doing something normal. And then also we're just gripping each other, like gripping each other. But when my grandma died,
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Chapter 6: How does Andrea cope with fear and anxiety surrounding illness?
I'm saying we have to really understand the importance of doing both of those things at once. Because even right now, I see is what we're doing with trans and non-binary communities of saying, We have to do all this activist work. We have to do all this stuff to change this legislation. And yes, we do. We do.
And also at the same time, are we building communities where we are teaching each other inner resilience so we are not completely undone by the way the world shows up? Both of those things have to be happening at the same time. And people need to know their strength. I didn't know I'm 47 years old. I didn't know my strength until I was 45 years old.
I wish I had spent my life knowing my strength and to trust, you know, trust your strength. My friend Ethel, she's in her mid seventies and she, she's one of my just most constant teachers and, She was telling me this story that when a butterfly is trying to make its way out of a cocoon, it is a real struggle. Like, I didn't know this. It's really hard for a butterfly to get out of that cocoon.
And it can look really, just really bad. And so humans, when they witness it, they often try to go and peel open the cocoon to help the butterfly out.
um but if a human does this the butterfly has far less chance of thriving because the struggle was crucial to its thriving and so we have to figure out the balance of when to really show up for each other communities that show up for each other and then also communities where we're knowing how to teach each other our strength we're saying you can get out of that cocoon i know you can and um
Yeah, and that's a thin line, a balance to figure out.
You talk about showing up for each other. Talk to us about your friendships. Your friendship seems so strong and so utterly beautiful. I just keep thinking about your best friend trying to fight the doctor, which makes my heart swell. How is that best friend doing? How are your friends showing up? What feels good to you when a person shows up or one of your friends? How are you receiving people?
I can imagine there's a lot of friends trying to grab you out of this cocoon right now. Yeah. How is that going? And who are your friends and how do they love you?
So I have all different kinds of friends, like so many different kinds of friends. Some of them are really woo-woo. Some of them are Christians. Some of them are Buddhists. Some of them are atheists. Some of them are straight edge, you know, all of it. I have the whole mix of people and people who are screaming, this fucking sucks. I hate this for you.
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Chapter 7: What does Andrea Gibson believe about joy and suffering?
Is there any way we could get you to read a poem?
Yes, you asked me to read one and I have one here. That's actually going to argue with everything I just said. Unless you have a specific poem.
No, I would just have to have you read every single one of your books that I carry around. Like I told you, like some people who have heart problems have to keep their aspirin close. I can't just keep all your books.
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. The soul misses the lisp, the stutter, the limp. The soul misses the holy bruise, blue from that army of blood rushing to the wound's side.
When a human dies, the soul searches the universe for something blushing, something shaking in the cold, something that scars, sweeps the universe for patience worn thin, the last nerve fighting for its life, the voice box aching to be heard. The soul misses the way the body would hold another body and not be two bodies, but one pleading God doubled in grace.
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