Lily Collins
Appearances
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And my wonderful therapist has now taught me so much about... in evolutionary times and kind of the experience through thousands of years ago with this most simplest forms of predator and prey, when prey felt threatened, they made themselves feel as small as possible, possibly by not eating, by making themselves look as least juicy and enticing as possible.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And that's where they felt the safest because the predator were no longer a threat. And then you cut to thousands of years later. I am not thinking about predator and prey, but it is that same feeling of panic and anxiety and wanting to just get by and feel safe in some way. And that anxiety was heightened in my toxic relationship completely.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
That's the panic attack manifestations, all of this, and my body reacting, like I said. And it's not until now that I kind of can recognize that fight or flight or the feeling of needing to hibernate. The situations are completely different 10 years ago to now, and also my ancestors of thousands of years ago. None of that applies to me.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I'm not looking to hibernate, but the feeling of panic is the same. And that panic is what I can still get triggered by now. Even if I'm in the most healthy relationship, there can be a moment that happens throughout the day where history comes back like that. It's like a millisecond or shorter than a millisecond. And your gut reacts, your heart drops, your heart starts beating.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
It's this planet. It's so good. How are you? I'm so good. I'm so much better now that your faces have popped up. This is a total dream come true. I literally hear your voices in my head all the time. All three of you when I'm driving. When I'm having a moment, you hop in and now I get to see your faces.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And all of a sudden you're taken back to that moment where they said that thing to you 10 years ago, but you're not in that situation now. And that's the trigger. And it's fucking hard. It's awful. It's awful.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Well, I've never had someone... other than Charlie witnessed me in that state, probably because I've never felt comfortable enough to be in that state knowing that that person's not gonna leave.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
So I've probably existed in that panic or those moments of being triggered and I've probably shut down before, but I shut down and didn't feel the feelings because I was afraid that if I did, they would see me in a different way And they'd leave. Absolutely. That's you're crazy. You're crazy. You're crazy. A hundred percent. I'm like, oh, they're never going to want to see this.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
So is that what you mean by hibernating? Yeah, I freeze. So it's like a fight or flight. It's like a deer in the headlights, freeze. Apparently my eyes go quite big. And I just have this look on my face where I don't have the words to articulate what I need to say. My brain moves so fast. I'm thinking all the time to the point of exhaustion sometimes.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And that's something I'm also working on because I have these like voices where I'm just always kind of talking out scenarios. And so if... something happens where I get triggered and I start feeling something, my initial instinct or reaction is,
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I need to think about this to exhaustion before I can find the words to articulate to Charlie or to somebody because they may not understand until I can actually eloquently articulate in paragraph form what I need to say.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And I'm so used to having to kind of have the perfect words to say it. So I will wait. an hour, a day, a week, you know what? Maybe I won't even get back to it and it'll just pass.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And so I think, I think I've, I've had these moments in the past, but never felt like I was in a safe enough place to show it in the moment or the person wasn't as aware nor knew me well enough to see that look and know that there's something happening. So when I'm in one of those moments and It is so clear to Charlie who can read me like a book and he calls it out in the moment. Calls it out.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And when I say calls it out, that can sometimes have a bad connotation when someone says like, why are you calling me out? No, this is what like healthy conversation and healthy communication is. can feel like when someone can lovingly bring to your attention or call out something that doesn't feel right or that they maybe don't agree with or that they want to help you with.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
It may feel uncomfortable, but it's for the best. And so when he says to me, what's going on? What happened? Is it something I said? Are you feeling some sort of way? Cause that just shifted very quickly. Sometimes I'll say, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. It's like, okay, you're not fine. I know you're not fine. Let's talk about it.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Yes, it's true. You keep me company on long drives and during those days or moments when you forget that you can do hard things, you know, and you keep me company, you keep me motivated. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh, sometimes I laugh while I'm crying. All of the feelings all of the time. And yeah, I just, I always want to just...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And I have gotten better at saying, if I truly feel like I need to take a moment, I will say you're right. There is something that just happened. I'm feeling some sort of way. I'm actually not at the place right now to properly articulate what I'm feeling. I can tell you the feelings. I know you want to help and you want to know them.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I promise I'll get back to you because I know in the past sometimes I said I will and then I don't and it goes unnoticed and then it gets not talked about and then it gets projected somewhere else. So I totally get that. But in this exact moment, I would really like to take some space and some time. And I know for anyone listening, that may actually sound like an untrue conversation.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
But I am that person now. I will say it that way because I know that he needs to know that I'm taking accountability for the fact that it is true. I also know that he needs to know I'll get back to him. And I need him to understand that I need the space and the time.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
But if I'm having a real moment that I do need to talk it out, like three mornings ago, everything was fine. And then I got off the phone and he came in and he just looked at me and I had that stare and I said, I'm fine. And then I went, you know what? Actually. And then I started talking and then it all came out. And And it's a non-judgmental space, right?
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Like, Abby, when you're saying that you can see it happen, I think knowing that you're safe, knowing that you're not being judged, knowing that you're not going anywhere provides the space to feel comfortable enough to kind of blurt everything out. And you know that unless it is something that you or... Charlie has said, it's not personal. It's me going through my stuff.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
It's you, Glennon, going through what you're thinking and feeling and knowing it's okay to just blurt it all out. And maybe the other person, Charlie, will help me articulate it in a way that makes sense. And also, like you said, Glennon, about...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
when you talk through things to your friends or to your loved ones or to your partner or whoever it may be, and they can so clearly see that something is wrong or fucked up or messed up or messy, it helps give you clarity in the moment. And sometimes I end up laughing and going, oh my God, thank you. Because I would have spent the whole day spiraling.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
tell people when they say something or do something that touches me or means a lot. I never expect responses, but I feel like sometimes those are the moments when you need to share and you always so sweetly respond. It means a lot. Thank you, Lily.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Yet you aren't given the space or the ability to individuate. And at that time, if you're in that You said the late teenage, early 20 years, that's when you're blooming and creating your identity. And if you're so wrapped up with one other person and you're being encouraged to quiet all the outside noise, because that's not good.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Your friends know, your parents know, like, let's just have it be us. And part of you is going, oh, great. Okay. And then part of you wants to reach out, but then there stops being the ability and the outreach for that. And you're only mirrored with what you're seeing. And that person is telling you who you are You are conditioned to start believing it.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And then once you're out of it, you are rocked. There's a sense of a self-identity crisis in a sense. I've been this for so long. What am I? What do I like? What do I find funny? What do I want to eat? What do I want to wear? Where do I want to go? What do I want to look at every day? And you're going, I don't know. And that can make you freeze too. Because
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I mean, now it's like, once you get out of something like that, there can be a renaissance where you're going, I'm going to try everything. I want to see who I am, what I like, what I don't like. But there's also a scary factor to it where you aren't having that person to rely on anymore for answers. And- Even if they weren't healthy answers, they were answers that you became used to.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And it delays that individuating process.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Yeah. And there's the idea that you can't do things on your own. So you're always going to need me. So good luck trying. And it's like, well, of course, you're going to feel rocked. Of course, you're going to feel like what you did, which is completely second guessing everything, feeling the sense of guilt. If you do do anything on your own, you can like celebrate it for a second.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And then it's like, oh God, well, was I supposed to do that on my own? It's just so complicated and exhausting. And that does take a while to rebuild. And then now being in a relationship where I've never felt more celebrated or encouraged to find even more of my identity through discovery and adventure and also failure. Like it's okay to try something and it doesn't work out.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Like I did a pottery class, loved it. Didn't create the coolest bowl. So maybe it's like not for me.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
By the way, so fun. It is really fun, but it's okay to keep discovering yourself. We don't have to have everything figured out and you don't have to enjoy everything that your person does either, but let's just keep trying and finding things. what version of yourself you are now.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I will say in that specific relationship, friends and family intervened and said, this is not normal. Even though I didn't ask for it, they intervened, which I'm so grateful for. And I took myself out of it because somewhere deep down, I knew I was worth more. I felt that I didn't want that anymore. I didn't want the physical manifestations to continue.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Even if I hadn't associated it directly with this experience or this person, I didn't wanna live that way. I loved my friends and my family that intervened so much that I thought there's gotta be merit to their words. There's something not right. And I also knew the second that I left, because I am the one that stopped being in that relationship first, I felt so free, so light, so much brighter.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
My brightness came back. I didn't even realize I was less bright, but I felt brighter. I felt bigger. I felt free. I felt the lump in my stomach go away. I all of a sudden could breathe. of course you go through, then I was angry, then I was sad, then I was confused, then I felt guilty. Then I thought, oh, maybe I can change. And it was me.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And you go through all of these experiences and I was given the opportunity by this person to, to enter back into the relationship for another time. And I said, no, thank you. And at that moment, I knew that I had learned enough about myself through reading, through my first experiences in therapy, through talking to my friends about the realness of that experience.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Cause I think I, I definitely sugarcoated a lot of those moments to them. Of
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
In a way that was like, oh, I'm fine. It's all good. Yeah, that's not, I don't love that, but it's not as bad as you think it is. And when I stopped sugarcoating and started realizing what was actually going on, and by the way- journaled and screenshot and saved emails because I wanted one day to be able not to read it and go, oh God, but to read it and go, I didn't make it up. Yes.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Because you never know. You know, you never know if your mind is going to play tricks on you. And I saved it all. And I even knew to go further back at 16 years old, I knew that I was going to want to remember everything The summer I was 16 and I thought I'm going to learn a lot of things about myself this year.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I know that in the next two years, it's going to be a lot of things that happened to me. And I'm going to start journaling because I'm going to want my future self to look back and know where things are. started really percolating and what feelings I was associating with what experiences. And one day I'm going to want to know that.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And then when I went to go write my book and when I went to go play a character in the movie to the bone, I was like, wait a second, I've written about stuff. And I like went back and thought it even said to future me in case you're wondering. And I'm like, what? And so having all of that helped me, take what I had written and then verbalize it.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
So like actually making my voice louder, filling me up with more like air to be able to say it out loud and then to receive the gift of other people saying, wow, that affected me. Wow, I read that. Or I heard you speak about that. And that was my story too. Or thank you for sharing that. That gave me the empowerment to kind of take a megaphone and then say it even louder. And then...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Even through all of that, admitting to all the stuff that I did in the book that I wrote, which there's so much more I've learned since that first one. Even through all that, I'm going to find a guy that wants to be with me. Oh, and he's encouraging me to be even louder. That's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to be a bigger version of what I thought wasn't actually appropriate.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I was called inappropriate so many times for using a voice, and now I'm being told, no, no, no. Like, use your voice to the loudest capacity that you have, because why not? Why are you freezing? Just say it. Let go. And I have a problem letting go. I do. I don't breathe properly. I don't like saying the words sometimes. I just don't like letting go.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And after being told for years in so many different arenas, just like, let go, let go. I'm like, what the fuck do you mean? Let go.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I am letting go. But that letting go ability, it like, you need to breathe to talk. And sometimes I like hold in too much.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I mean, it's Go Campaign. But you know what? G-O spells it. So we can just go with either one.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Hi, sister. I literally have seen your beautiful faces on the little squares on Instagram as well. So I feel very familiar with you. And you, Abby. So wonderful to meet you. And having read your books, Glennon, during COVID, during the beginning of lockdown, I feel like I know... a little bit of the wonderful journey that you've all been on together.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I met Charlie in 2019. So right before the pandemic, essentially. And to backtrack a little, I had spoken to a psychic months and months and months and months and months before. And she had said to me, I feel like you're going to meet your person in May. And I was like, that's quite specific. I was like, okay, sure. Cool. Great. I mean, maybe, I don't know.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And I don't live my life according to what I'm being told. I'm just like, it's in the back of my mind. And may comes around and there's a part of me that's like, cool. Okay. Come on. Manifest, you know, and I get to the end of may and I'm like, okay, well it didn't happen. Cause it wasn't that person. And I didn't like that. And now I'm not going to force it.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
You know, it's clearly not meant to be. And then Charlie and I meet through a work experience and, Just sitting at work. And I see him. It was just like a FaceTime meeting because we were both in different places and we were meeting on something. And his face popped up. And I kid you not, his face popped up and I'm like, whoa, do I know this person? This is weird.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Like there was like an old soul connection right away where I just felt so connected. This is not a word, but confusably comfortable. I was like, I don't understand what's happening right now. But I didn't associate it with the date that it was. I didn't associate it with anything at first romantic. I just was like, whoa, this is a weird connection with a human. And as we're talking...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
We have so much in common. We're half British, half American. Our dads are both British in the entertainment industry of a certain age. We have been in the same rooms at the same time. I had just recently danced with his mother and stepfather at a birthday party, which we were like, wait, I've already met some of your family. We had similar people in common.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
We just had all these weird experiences that we should have met, but we hadn't. And as I'm talking, I realize I'm starting to like, Kind of like twirl my hair. And I'm like starting to get a little awkward, but I still don't really clock it until after when I overly analyze the situation in my head. But we're talking, it's the most wonderful, easy conversation ever.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And I'm so grateful to have been able to read about your experiences and to continue to see all the adventures and the growth.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And I just felt connected to this person. We get off the phone and... Uh, like two or three days go by where I keep talking about him to people in a way that is about work, but also just kind of past that talking about how wonderful the conversation was. I remember them being like, so you've talked more about this person than a person that you have like gone out on dates with.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And you said it was just like a meeting. I'm like, yeah, it was just a meeting, but And then I looked at my calendar and I had met him on May 30th. And I was like, whoa, wait a second. And so then we started messaging each other. I reached out first.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I had to make that a thing. I reached out first. And then that was it. We talked 24-7 for days and days and days. And my favorite thing is another reason why... I knew he was the one was when I said, so let's definitely get together when we're both back in town at some point. I'm actually going to London to go to the Spice Girls concert. So maybe after that.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And I was like, what's his reaction going to be? And he was like, oh my God, I love that you're going. That's going to be so fun.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Yeah, that would have been a real sign. And then it was it. You know, I just felt right away. that I was, A, going to be as safe and protected as I've ever felt, and also equally as challenged, but healthfully challenged to be a bigger, bolder, more inquisitive, adventurous self, which to your point is fucking scary, right? Because I thought I knew everything about myself.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I thought I knew who I was. I knew at the core who I was, but I was still totally individuating and I was still finding me. But you can do that And be in a relationship. Yeah. It doesn't have to be one or the other. And that was the first time I found that out. Yes.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
That in and of itself can be confusing to somebody who has either not believed the moments when they've been told to fly or they've been told that because but the words have said one thing and the intention was, but you better come back real fast, you know?
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And if you're an empathic person, if you're someone that can really clue yourself into what someone's saying and the intention behind it, and you're getting these completely mismatched feelings,
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
That can create this idea that A, what people say isn't what they mean, or I can't even trust the good of what you're saying because I think it's going to come with some sort of resentment or you're going to hold it against me or you don't really mean that. And it takes a while for that to stop being your go-to. And when you're shown, again, expressing that is important because they can be
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
unfortunate mis-projections of something that I'm still feeling from the past where I'm like, I don't know if what you're saying is true. And whereas I, He's saying, no, but I wouldn't say it if it weren't. I don't say things if I don't mean it. And it's like, oh yes, okay, okay, right, right, right.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I'm just trying to reprogram my brain because I haven't trusted that in the past, but I'm going to lean in and I'm going to trust it. And then after time and time again of those experiences actually being positive ones, you then can reprogram and recondition yourself to trust yourself. what someone's saying and their intention. Yes.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
No, I've had similar completely. But that's why I said I overthink where I'm going. Oh, there's no way that that. OK, so it must be that. But I'm now I'm not going to say anything. And now I'm going to hold it in. And now I'm going to think every single time that happens, that that's the reason. And it's like, yeah, so exhausting.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Oh gosh. It's, it's being held accountable for things or being, like I said, originally lovingly called out. I find more conflict within myself. I've always felt like I'm my own worst critic or worst enemy and, I will create conflict if there isn't conflict within myself because that's kind of where I was comfortable for a long time.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And that then may create conflict because I don't want to talk about it or I don't know how to articulate it. And so the idea of being lovingly challenged is probably what I would associate now with healthy conflict as opposed to it feeling like...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
something's wrong and now I've got to fight about it or defend something, it usually stems from something to do with me overthinking or me feeling some sort of way about myself and trying to work through that type of conflict, like more inner conflict. And maybe if I don't properly internalize or vocalize that, It can lead to misprojected conflict, you know?
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And those are the times when I have to go like, Lily, stop. What are you doing? Take the time if you need it. Let's figure out where it's coming from. It has nothing to do with the situation that you're now taking it out on. And sometimes I write those things down in like a drafts note thing. I bring it up to my therapist and I go...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
this weird thing happened or this feeling happened and I don't know why or where it's coming from. And like you said, that third-party person can sometimes go, oh, well, that is completely associated with X, Y, or Z from this many years ago or now. And so I think the main source of anxiety for me, and it's something I've only learned in the past year, I think, is that I was really born anxious.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I was an anxious child and I didn't know that the term anxiety applied to me. I would always use it and be like, I'm so anxious. I'm so anxious. And it took this person saying, what are like the first questions you remember asking yourself or what are your earliest memories? And I said, the first question I remember actually asking is, is my name actually Lily? And they went,
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
okay, well, that is an anxious child and you were already questioning your identity. And I said, well, okay, I also had this recurring dream as a kid where imagine two Pac-Men, one's little and one's big and I'm the little and I'm going around the board and a big one is chasing me intensely trying to eat me. Or I was this small blip and there was a really big massive blip
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And it was just a feeling. I don't know what the shape was, probably round, but I felt like an intense pressure that one was going to swallow me up. And he's like, everything that you've said is anxiety. And that feeling of anxiety and panic is
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
manifested in a way like I talked about originally with evolutionary times, predator and prey, you freeze, it's fight or flight, you hibernate, you get smaller, you don't want to feel attractive to something that's scary. And so you feel comfortable and most settled in being small and just blending in.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And it's so interesting because I'm in an industry where we're trying to stand out all the time and be individuals while at the same time I became so used to as a kid trying to just go with the flow, not raise any fuss, be kind of perfect in whatever perfect way that meant. And all of that anxiety, we've all been triggered by things in the past
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
few years during the pandemic and things have come to light, your face to look in the mirror at times when you could have just ignored it to begin with. And all of these feelings are coming up that you don't necessarily recognize. And by speaking about it, I've realized so much of that is literally anxiety and having had that for so many years.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And you just literally said it before me. It's so true. Someone used that recently and said, you know, it's just a nonlinear journey. And I went, God, I love that so much. It really is. It perfectly defines the journey because you never know when it's going to be up. You never know when it's going to be down. You don't know when you're going to experience that setbacks, you know, going,
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And so living in that creates this inner conflict within myself that that is, is a daily occurrence. It just lives in me. And it's something I have to monitor so that I don't create unnecessary conflict.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I will say we started off this conversation by talking about nonlinear journeys. And I think mine is a nonlinear experience because I have in the past year learned about
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
my anxiety and how that has manifested in my life during times when I have felt out of control or needing to feel safe, as you said, or being rocked within my own body, whether it's my identity, whether it's an outside situation that causes me to go into robot mode, which is, okay, I have all these things to accomplish. I'm going to be able to do it in a way that feels as perfect as possible. I...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
forget that I need to fuel myself in order to do those things. Meanwhile, I'm also anxious. I don't feel the anxiety all the time. It's subconscious sometimes, but it does physically affect your body in ways that you don't even know until you're outside of it. It's something that I am very aware of. I have surrounded myself with people that
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
are professionals in a lot of ways, whether that's trainer, nutritionist, acupuncture, therapist, my friends, my husband, my family that know it's a non-linear journey and know that I will not always be quote unquote perfect in my journey with it. And it's something that because I'm talking so much more openly about my experiences and about
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
panicking and feeling anxious at times, it's becoming easier to let a lot of the shame that surrounds anxiety go. And it's interesting because I wrote a book that includes No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me in the title. And even someone that can write something and feel something can also at times feel something different. It doesn't make you a hypocrite.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And I've had to come to terms with that because sometimes I think, God, you know, I speak about wanting to let certain things go in my mid twenties.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
one step forward, two steps back or vice versa. Like you just don't know. And the idea of it being a nonlinear takes forever. Away that pressure of it being perfect right away and accepting the fact that it's nonlinear is so freeing in a sense.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And then I find myself in my early thirties having to reprogram at certain times again, because I've, I've had new experiences that have brought up old triggers that I wouldn't have expected in my early twenties or when I wrote the book in my mid twenties. And so I think it's important for me, first of all, I'm at a place now where career-wise where I, I love what I do so much and I feel so
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
at home with a character, you know, like Emily, that gets to be this unapologetic, work-driven, loves love, loves herself, positive beam of light. I enjoy playing her so much.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
A romp of a delight, which thank you for that. Delightful romp. She brings a lot of joy into my life. I can balance that out with other projects that are, you know, slightly maybe more psychological or, or my friends used to like say dark and depressing.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
So that's kind of where I would gravitate towards, but I'm also with someone who constantly lovingly sees me, sees if I'm struggling, sees if I need holding, sees if I need freeing or celebrating or talking to and never makes me feel judged when I have a bad day. And when I have a bad food day where I get confused or I feel
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
guilty or I feel panicky or any of those feelings, all those feelings exist. They exist and they're real. But I think the more I focus on, for me, the big picture of health and wellness and wanting a big fulfilled life and I want a family. And those are the things that to me
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
take precedence in my heart and in my body and in my brain than so much of what used to take over my entire being as to what caused my anxiety, which then manifested in eating disorder. And I'm really proud of the journey that I've made and the progress that I've made and the art that I've been able to create from a lot of pain and the people I've met, including you guys.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I mean, truly this, you know, Glenn, in your book and this podcast has enlightened me in so many ways and made me feel like I have friends at times when you think no one else can understand your brain.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
But yeah, you kind of said it like you don't know what's necessarily happening when you're in it because you're so far in it and part of you wants to be there. At some points, all of me wanted to be there, but then... my body was physically reacting in ways that I've never experienced.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
the idea that there is no shame in the fact that life and your experiences are a non-linear experience. And as long as now, as me, I know that it's important to have professionals around you that can support, that can lovingly encourage and, and call to your attention when you may need more advice or help or guidance. That is so far beyond what I had in my mid twenties because I hadn't,
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
outsourced certain help. I hadn't transitioned to a new phase of my life where I was like, okay, I've gotten a lot of help to now. I feel like I'm graduating to a new phase of that. I've dug really deep. I've learned a lot of new things. And now I want to focus on those deeper things with someone new. And then it takes me to a new place.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And it's just not always acting on the thoughts, but when you become really used to the thoughts and Sometimes you feel like you have to act on them the same way over and over again. But it's getting to the place where you realize you don't and you're surrounded by the right people that encourage you to think differently and bigger.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I love, no, I love that. I, you know what? It's honestly, I so appreciate that as well, though, because- Obviously, it's my family, and I'm so endlessly proud and such an admirer of, obviously, my dad's work, but it's also, you know, I'm on my own path and my own journey in that sense as well. And so I find it so wonderful and loving and also hilarious.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I love all of you. And I'm so endlessly grateful for the, conversations. Every single time I listened to you, you're just wonderful beings. All three of you. I'm so grateful. This is a huge, a bucket list moment, but life fulfilling moment for me to be able to speak with you and to share my small story that feels bigger and bigger. The more I say it. Yes.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
My skin was breaking out and I was having these panic attacks and I had kidney infections and all of this stuff that I'm going, I've never really had bad acne. I've never had heart palpitations like this. All of these weird physical manifestations, but I didn't at that time of my life
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Put the two and two together as saying like your body is telling you this is not something you're supposed to be in. And it's only until this part of my life when I've really been able to associate physical manifestations and emotional feelings and situations into reality. One understanding. And a lot of that now seems quite obvious to me, you know, in relation to this relationship.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And a lot of it was he chose me. So that's cool. That's a big deal. And I leaned into what it was that he wanted. Wanted me to be like, wanted me to say or not say, where, not where, do, not do. There was a lot of control, a lot of emotional abuse. And, you know, when you get told something over and over again and you're at an impressionable age, you...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
become conditioned to believe that that is what it is and you are what they say you are. And it's confusing.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
It totally applies to me. And, you know, it was interesting when I was in high school, I was a part of a peer support program at my school, which completely changed my life. It was basically teen therapy and And I trained to be a teen therapist. And every Monday we would meet in a group of the same students from 10th to 12th grade. There were no adults in the room.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
So it felt completely freeing because at that age, anybody over the age of, you know, 18 felt way too old to be privy to my information and what I was going through. And so having the same group of kids every week for the entire year was to be able to openly discuss our problems, issues, confusing things, exciting things.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Of course, unless there was a red flag where you were hurting yourself, you were hurting someone else, or someone was hurting you, then you brought it to the school therapist. But otherwise, it was completely student-run. And it was an amazing opportunity to connect during those formidable high school years on topics that you would think that person and I have nothing in common.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Whereas in fact, maybe the situation is different, but the feelings are the same. And if we can connect on the feelings and know that we're all the same in that way, it'll make A, high school a little more doable. And B, you wouldn't create a stigma and a shame around certain feelings that I think do unfairly get that reputation. And
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
It's interesting that I then found myself in a situation that I could have used that group's help, but I was out of high school. I wasn't yet in actual therapy, but I want to say one of the gifts of the domino effect of this relationship is was it led me to therapy. And it was the breaking point for me to go, I really need to talk about this.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I was outside of the relationship at that point, but I had so many lingering feelings. And to be completely honest, Up until two weeks ago, I realized I still have lingering feelings and we are 10 years past it. Oh, I mean, absolutely.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
That's so important. That's completely important. And actually, now in my life, having my wonderful, supportive husband, we do communicate and talk about so much that he will be the first person that goes, um, you know, that's not normal, right? Or that's pretty fucked up. Or that must feel weird. And it's like, oh...
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
actually, yeah, if I were to write down what I just said and reread it to myself, I'd go, that's crazy. Like, why am I putting up with that? Or why do I think that's okay? And you're so right. At that age, you're fearful of speaking up. But in those times that I did, or as a teen therapist heard other people speaking up and watched their face as like five people in the room said, oh my God, I'm
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
I felt that, or I'm in that situation. And you watch their face receive that. It's the most beautiful moment to witness someone realizing they're not alone or they would use the word crazy. And I'm like, just stop using that word. Like feelings are, cannot make you crazy.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
Like that, that term, we can joke about it and use it, but when you take it to heart and actually feel like this feeling associates with you being quote unquote crazy, that will come with you throughout your life. And you will feel like that feeling is not okay to feel. So when you're an adult and you're feeling that you shut down and you hibernate and you
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
you kind of freeze like this, like fight or flight panic thing. And like you were saying that 10 AM I'm fine and 10, 20, I'm not. I constantly have those moments where I wake up and I'm like, Today's going to be great. I'm going to be fine. And I try to work through all of this in the moment now because it's just so important to try and understand it while it's happening.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
But it is really hard, especially if you haven't had your coffee yet. And all of a sudden I'm having a moment and Charlie is, my husband's like, okay, you've done that deer in the headlights thing. What's happening? Something's happening. And it can just switch.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And it's so important to talk it out, even though if you don't have the words, because so many times I don't have the words, it literally won't come out. And I think so much of that to go back to what makes a situation toxic. And it can be, like you said, it can be in work. It can be in romance. It can be a friendship.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
It can be someone you literally run into at the coffee shop that you've never met before and you leave and go, oh, well, that felt awful. But for me... my romantic toxic relationship with a lot of verbal and emotional abuse and being made to feel very small. He would call me little Lily and, Oh, you should be little Lily.
We Can Do Hard Things
How to Find Good Love After Bad with Lily Collins (Best Of)
And like, he'd use awful words about me in terms of what I was wearing and would call me a whore and all these things. There were awful words. And then there were belittling words. And I, it became this extremely belittling... I became quite silent and comfortable in silence and feeling like I had to make myself small to feel super safe.