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yeeterthek33per · 2 years

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So Glennon and Abby just released the We Can Do Hard things episode with Christen Press, so for those of you who have trouble listening to podcasts but love reading, here's a copy and paste of the transcript from the episode. Abby is in bold, glennon will be italics and christen will be both. (FYI, this took so fucking long because my phone hates me but all credits go to the We Can Do Hard Things Websites transcriptor.)

Abby Wambach:

Is she okay? What’s happening right now?

Glennon Doyle:

Because you had never seen anyone meditate before.

Abby Wambach:

Well, she was meditating.

Glennon Doyle:

Right, right, right, right. Obviously, yeah.

Abby Wambach:

And it was the first time I had seen somebody do that in real life, in the national team environment. So, I think I tried to be quiet.

Glennon Doyle:

Checked her pulse first.

Abby Wambach:

And that was impossible. So eventually, you came to and I think I probably asked you about it and was super curious, because I think I’ve always been very curious in that spiritual space. What happened next was actually quite interesting because it developed an intimidation. I was intimidated by you because you had this part in you that you were exploring that I wished that I could explore in myself.

Glennon Doyle:

Because she wasn’t asking you for advice.

Abby Wambach:

That’s right.

Glennon Doyle:

She was looking inside herself. That’s what drove you nuts.

Abby Wambach:

Yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

Did you know that you have always intimidated Abby Wambach?

Christen Press:

No, this is news to me. News to me. I have definitely startled quite a few roommates with my meditation practice, especially early on in the national team because I’m pretty quiet. So, I didn’t tell people I was going to meditate. They just found me that way. But this is news to me that I ever intimidated you because I quite certainly was going through the same thing on my end, but maybe for different reasons.

Abby Wambach:

Yeah. I just thought it was so cool for such a young kid to come into the environment like the national team and to actually do your own thing. It was super common for all of us, myself included, to just assimilate and just do whatever anybody else is doing and just try to do it harder and more. I just love that memory of you and it solidified this deep respect, even though people don’t understand this about the national team, we are close, but we’re also competing against each other for time on the field. And that time on the field has repercussions in lots of different ways.

Glennon Doyle:

Pod squad, just think about that. You’re hanging out with your best friends in a room and then somebody blows a whistle and it’s like everybody run and one of you have to win. Imagine.

Christen Press:

We don’t have to imagine, we lived that. I still live that.

Glennon Doyle:

It’s so wild. Okay, Christen Press is a two time World Cup champion and Olympian. I’m sorry, I’m just imagining racing all of my friends. As well as a leading forward at Los Angeles Angel City FC. An entrepreneur, an advocate for inclusivity, Christen, along with her US women’s national teammates, Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath and Megan Klingberg, launched their company re-inc, a purpose driven global lifestyle brand.

Glennon Doyle:

A leader, both on and off the field, Christen was one of the key players leading the charge for the equal play equal pay campaign, to highlight the pay discrepancy between the women’s and men’s national teams, which led to the new agreement and to her role as player representative for the US Women’s National Team Players Association. Christen Press welcome to We Can Do hard Things. You do a lot of hard things.

Christen Press:

Thank you for having me. I am so happy to be here and thanks for that very lovely introduction.

Glennon Doyle:

So Christen, you weren’t always just Spirit Spice, you used to be Stressy Spice.

Christen Press:

You know me.

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

In college you actually talked about being miserable playing soccer, that you used to cry on the field that you constantly felt like you weren’t good enough. Can you take us back to that time and talk to us about what playing soccer was like for you then?

Christen Press:

Yeah, I have so many thoughts from your story, Abby, just swirling in my head of where to begin. But to go back to the beginning, I grew up in Southern California, which is a hotbed for women’s soccer, in a very competitive family and I’m a middle child, so I was vying for the attention of my parents my whole life. And soccer was the way that I thought I was going to get that. And I think many people experience in sport, this idea that if you win a game, you’ll be satisfied, or if you score a goal, then your parents are going to be satisfied, or it’ll help their life, or their relationship. So, I think my introduction to sport was in a really quite toxic and quite pressure ridden environment, where I thought that my worth and my value was dependent on my performance.

Christen Press:

It’s the typical sports story. I think so many people go through that, but it didn’t work for me. It didn’t work for my wellbeing. It didn’t make my parents happy ultimately, but it also didn’t allow me to be my best. And so actually, the better I got, the worse it was for me and that was all the way through college. And through college, I saw some of my teammates start to make the national team. We obviously experienced this huge boom in women’s soccer, where it became really important and there was glory to be had. And so with that, the pressure of getting a scholarship and going to college, and scoring in college, the pressure got bigger and bigger. It was make the national team, be the best player. And so, the closer I got, the worse it was. That was my experience in college and I started seeing some of my teammates on the national team and I started to feel for the first time in my career that I wasn’t reaching those dreams, that I wasn’t able to be the best player, that I wasn’t getting that call up, and I was drowning in that.

Christen Press:

I think both my parents were so invested in my career that they began to drown in this idea of, I wouldn’t be happy unless I got there. And then I was feeling like they wouldn’t be happy unless I got there. And actually, this is how my meditation practice was born. My little sister also played up to college soccer and she had a lot harder of a time than I did, struggled with mental illness, hated soccer, got sick when she played, so much anxiety.

Christen Press:

So, in her own journey, she went to meditation to try to find a way to cope with the stresses of her life and started a meditation practice and then convinced our whole family we should all do it together. That’s how my family is. So, we all go to this guru to learn how to meditate.

Glennon Doyle:

No way.

Christen Press:

Yep, and now my sister’s a meditation instructor. So, this is her whole life. That’s when I found my meditation practice. And of course, so much applied to sport, the meditative nature of letting things go, letting thoughts come in and go out. It’s so applicable when you’re on the field, when you miss a shot, let it go and just training your brain to be focused. So, it was really applicable to me in a concrete way, but ultimately what happened is once I started to let go in a larger sense of these dreams, of these accolades, of these need to succeed, I started playing way better, and it was like a breath of fresh air.

Christen Press:

Also, at the same time, the women’s league that was then folded, so there was no place for me to play. I was out of college and I went to Sweden, where I was putting a huge distance between all of those expectations and all of the people who had expectations and me and those two things happened at the same time. Learned to meditate, started playing just for the love of it and gave up on my dream of making the national team, just said, “It’s never going to happen.” But the current coach for the national team was in Sweden and I was there for two months before I got my first call up. And so, in my mind, I always say it was the scenic route to the national team.

Glennon Doyle:

So, hold on a second. So pod squad, listen, she goes to Sweden. She’s like, “Screw it, league folded. So, I’m just going to go to Sweden and actually have joy playing and play … ” like you say, like no one’s watching. And the national team coach happened to be watching because she is Swedish.

Abby Wambach:

Yep.

Glennon Doyle:

Holy crap. Okay, so then she calls you and is like, “Actually you are going to be on the national team. Surprise, surprise.” And you’re like, “Shit.”

Christen Press:

I wish it was all that easy. It was she called and said, “You have a snowball’s chance in hell of being on the national team, but you’re going to get a chance.” And what I was waiting for was that chance. And so, I think that’s the reason that when I came into the national team, I came with this determination to stay true to myself because I knew that the traditional competitive pressure, that type of culture of American sports, did not get me to the national team, so it wasn’t going to keep me on the national team.

Abby Wambach:

Whoa.

Christen Press:

And so, it was actually quite hard socially because it’s easier when you fit in and when you follow, and as a young player being like, “I have to be me,” that put a divide between me and a lot of people off the field, but I knew it was what I had to do to be well and to be successful.

Glennon Doyle:

So, besides meditating, what are you talking about when you say I had to be true to myself and that causes divides?

Christen Press:

I think it was just overall approach to training, to what I thought made me tick, to putting myself in environments that were right for me, even if it made other people uncomfortable, like meditating in my room with a roommate, that’s actually quite uncomfortable. Doing my own recovery when the group was doing something else and me feeling like this worked. I actually remember Abby, I have a memory of you asking Lauren Cheney Holiday, who was my friend on the team, one of my first friends on the team. “Oh, does Christen just like being alone.” She told me that you said that because I was always off doing my own thing. And I think that that is what made me feel like I had to do that to be there. But then there was a little bit of dissonance between how I was behaving and what was expected for a new player on the team because I’m entering this group where everyone’s amazing and they’re at the top of their game and there’s so much to learn from them. And there was this little sense of, “Does she not think she needs to learn from us because she’s doing it her own way?”

Abby Wambach:

Yeah. I remember that, when I walked into the room and I saw you meditating, that was in and around the same time that I was reading Susan Cain’s book, Quiet, because Becky Sauerbrunn was also on the team and she’s this raging introvert and I couldn’t connect with her. I felt like me and her were oil and water and I was trying-

Glennon Doyle:

Like me and you, yeah.

Abby Wambach:

Yeah. Yes, it’s ironic, very ironic that I’ve married a raging introvert. But I just think that I hope you know, that what you did, was you freed so many other people to come into that environment and to feel a little bit, maybe not fully, but a little bit more confident in doing their thing. And so, you see some of these players expressing themselves in all the kinds of ways. I actually deeply believed Christen, that you were a really big revolutionary when it comes to that, because it’s so much harder to do what you did than to do what I did, where I just stepped in. I was like, “Okay, Mia Hamm, I’ll do whatever you want. How do you want me to jump? I’ll do it.”

Abby Wambach:

I just want you to know that there’s so much respect there. Even if there was a feeling of dissonance or disconnection at times, there was for me, at least I can speak for myself. I always respected the hell out of you for making that choice. Because I knew that it was a harder road, maybe a more lonely road too. So, I think it’s really amazing.

Glennon Doyle:

And it’s hopeful to all of us who are … So many times we talk on the podcast about how do we introvert sensitive people, Spirit Spices? How do we function inside of cultures that are so American, so cutthroat, and churning, and even capital … all of it, just … So Christen, I want to ask, you talk about how you were in a cycle when you were young about trying to impress your parents that you thought they’d never be happy unless you were great. They thought you wouldn’t be happy unless you were great. You talk about the pursuit of greatness that your family had. Do you believe in the pursuit of greatness and what are the downfalls of chasing greatness? Would that be a theme of your chosen … The family you have one day, would you choose chasing greatness as a family value?

Christen Press:

100%. But I think it depends on your definition of greatness, because I hear a little bit of your answer in your question.

Glennon Doyle:

The answer is no, so you’ve already failed.

Christen Press:

But I think for me, the pursuit of greatness, while it caused anxiety and stress, and it caused me to lose myself, it’s also what caused me to find myself again. And it pushed me out of my comfort level to be true to me and ultimately this old cliche, the journey’s the destination, but that’s only true if you’re trying to get somewhere and that’s for me, the pursuit of greatness. I can take my injury right now, where there’s this idea that a successful recovery is a speedy recovery, or there’s an idea that I need to get to a certain place. I need to get back, I need to do these things, these milestones. I reject that. I reject that it needs to be a speedy recovery. I reject that I need to be on this certain pace, but in order for me to find value, it’s in the intention of my journey and my journey is to grow and to get better every day and to be well, and then to share that as I can with other people around me as an energy, as a lifestyle.

Christen Press:

If I was satisfied with where I was, where I can’t run currently, I can’t do things, if I satisfied, that’s not peace. So, I think it’s that intent to be moving, to be growing. That is greatness. I think it is helpful to have a target, and I am very goal oriented. Every day I write down, “This is my goal for the day. This is what I want to achieve.” I just have to be able to have peace when I don’t get there, but I don’t ever want to stop writing down that goal. I don’t ever want to stop pursuing greatness. I just want to balance that with acceptance of what ultimately happens.

Abby Wambach:

I think that’s so interesting because so many people in the world probably believe that spirituality and this desire for greatness can’t be put together, that they’re mutually exclusive. But I think what you’re saying is that there’s more nuance to that, in that not just your recovery, but you can be a multitude of things. You can have a path, spiritual or not, and also want to chase this kind of excellence and greatness that you get to define every single day. I think that that’s really interesting.

Glennon Doyle:

Do you have any advice because there’s a lot of parents that listen, we are now part of soccer land with children, so we spend all of our life on the sidelines of the soccer and-

Abby Wambach:

It’s a slow hell.

Glennon Doyle:

… the parents are un-effing-believable. Christen, you may have experienced some of this in your lifetime, but we actually started bringing blow pops to-

Abby Wambach:

Sidelines.

Glennon Doyle:

… sidelines, and just shoving them in parents’ mouths when they started screaming, just going down the sideline, just we would call it, start sucking to stop sucking. Just put the lollipop in your mouth and it will remind you to shut up.

Christen Press:

Oh, that’s amazing.

Glennon Doyle:

It’s amazing to see parents lose themselves. I do it too. Do you have any advice for how to parent children who are pursuing greatness, without having them feel like their worth depends on it, or their relationship or their connection with their parents depends on it? Anything you wish would’ve happened or do you ever think about that?

Christen Press:

Yeah, I can only give parenting advice from the perspective of the child, obviously, but I think it was somewhere along the line, I felt like I was forgotten about. And at one point, it was, “Christen wants this, so we want this.” And then I think that I was cut out of the equation. It was like, “We want this.” And it wasn’t until my mom got sick, that she and I were able to overcome that struggle in our relationship. I have a memory, years before my mom was sick, where I was working in my spirituality, on my meditation practice, working with a few people. And the theme of this journey that I was on was surrender. And it helped you identify what it was that you wanted the most. And then you had to let go of it. I was already on the national team, so I was an adult. And I remember in a hotel in the national team, getting on my hands and knees every morning and saying, “I surrender the need for my mother’s approval.” And because as a full grown adult-

Glennon Doyle:

Oh, yes.

Christen Press:

… still needing to feel that it was for her, that I was playing for her. And I almost lost my own love of the game because of that. And through that time, I shared that experience with my mother and it was like we both had this aha moment, where one day I was on my hands and knees and I got up and I was like, “What if I’m wrong? What if she hasn’t forgotten about me? What if she actually already loves me and accepts me? What if she actually thinks I’m amazing? And I am the one who’s miscalibrating and I’m projecting all my own fears on her, and I’m saying, ‘She forgot about me. She has these goals for soccer,\ but what if that’s me?” And it just hit me that my mom already accepted me and it hit her that I didn’t need some of these things that she thought I needed and we both were able to move on from that.

Christen Press:

So, it’s really roundabout way of giving advice. But I think the key to it is acceptance and showing all people that you care, whether they’re your parent, or your child, or your friend, or your lover, that you accept them for who they are and meeting people as full people, not just as career people, because ultimately, that’s what was my deepest need, was to be accepted by my mother. I thought that that meant for so many years, I had to be a great player. I had to be on the national team, I had to do these things, but it really has nothing to do with that. It has to do with who you are, what’s at your core, what you’re striving for, and what that means to the other person and what it means to the world.

Glennon Doyle:

So, you’ve done your career differently. You do things differently and pod squad, you just have to watch the soccer game and just you just watch her on the field, it’s just different things. I don’t know, she just floats and flits about, and then somehow the ball goes in the goal, so you just have to watch her, but it’s different. And another thing that’s different is I watched how you did grief differently, when you lost your mother, who you love so, so very much. You actually signed with Angel City and then took a mental health break, right?

Christen Press:

Yes, I did.

Glennon Doyle:

I didn’t even know why at the time. I was just like, “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.” But can you tell us why and what you did during that time?

Christen Press:

Yeah. So, a big part of it was the emotional journey that I went on with my mom. She was healthy one day and then deeply sick the next and had about three months where she was very sick and then she passed. And in those three months, I feel like we lived 30 years in terms of our relationship and our conversations, and a big part of it was acceptance of each other and this fear that we both had, that the other person didn’t love us, or didn’t respect us, or didn’t accept us. We went through that and my mom cared so much about me and about soccer. She just loved it and she was so invested. And actually, I was with the national team in Spain, in January of 2019, and I scored in that game in Spain and I got back on a flight the next day and flew home and my mom had brain bleed when I was on the flight. And I actually never saw her again. And as soon as I walked into the hospital room where my family was, my dad said, “The last exchange I had with your mom was showing her your goal and she was so happy.” So, that gives you a sense of how deeply tied my whole family is to my career, that it meant so much to my dad that that was his last interaction with my mom.

Christen Press:

So, that was January, 2019. I had missed a lot of camp when my mom was sick and it was a World Cup year. So, I took a little bit of time and I just went straight back into it, and we were preparing for a World Cup. We had our pay equity lawsuit. There was just so much happening and I’m a very emotional person. I’m very dramatic, I’ve been this my whole life. So, I process things in big ways, in big moments, but I’m generally not sad. I’m generally not mopey or tired. I just have these outbursts of emotion, and then I bounce back. And so that’s how I was dealing with my grief. It was these big dramatic moments and then I’d get back to practice, and get back to life. And that went through the World Cup and all the way, honestly, for years.

Christen Press:

It went on through COVID, it went on through the Olympics, and I started to think, why did my grieving experience look so different from my sister’s or from other peoples? And there’s this weird comparison that happens, which isn’t fair, but can’t help but do it. And I was like, “This doesn’t feel right.” I reflected on it and I was like, “I never took a break. I never processed, I never stopped.” I didn’t feel like it was killing me, but I felt like I was missing something, some sort of next step, some sort of clarity, and almost like a growth in my relationship with my mom that I saw in front of me.

Glennon Doyle:

Wow.

Christen Press:

Well, obviously the period of playing soccer through COVID was really hard and difficult and the Olympics was really special and difficult, and it was like all this pressure was just mounting on me and I’ve always done it my own way. I’ve always been on the national team in my own way. I remember when I had this revelation that it was like, “I’ve done this consistently since 2012. It is now 2021 and I need some perspective and I need time to grieve. And my relationship with my mom is so tied to soccer, I need to not have soccer to understand where that leaves like me and my mom.”

Christen Press:

Yeah, you’re probably catching onto this, I feel like my relationship with my mom is ongoing and it’s something that I do cultivate now. So, it was like, I need to have my relationship with my mom without soccer for this period of time. In that same moment where I was like, “I’m going to take four months off,” I also had this feeling of competitiveness that it was like, I can do this. I can show a good way. I can help release some of this pressure that I’m sure other athletes are feeling and I will come back and I will be better. And it will be a good thing for the world, to show that you can do this. That was last fall and I then spent four months traveling and living my best life.

Christen Press:

I became a pilgrim and I went on El Camino de Santiago and I just walked everywhere, I traveled all these places and I really worked on my relationship with my mother, my relationship with myself, my identity without soccer and where all those pieces fit. I think I had this fear because I had such a toxic relationship with soccer for so long, that I would never want to come back. I never felt like that. The whole time I was like, “This is this moment and there will be another moment.” Now it’s an interesting thing to reflect on because obviously, I came back for a few months and then had my first major injury. And so there’s this feeling of, this probably never would’ve happened, if I hadn’t taken four months off. I can just say that.

Christen Press:

I don’t have regret, I’m not that type of person, but I just think that’s the facts. But the question is, did I gain more anyway? Did that help prepare me for this, for this next journey? I think in so many ways, the way I grew, I imagined myself so often just taking step after, step on El Camino with nothing to burden me, but just taking the next step and the simplicity of that and the profound effect it had in its most basic form of living, just letting your foot kiss the ground, that’s all you had to do. I feel like it shaped everything that I am from this point forward. And it prepared me for so much, but it came with the big risk of my place on the national team, my ability to compete at the highest level, a little bit of fear of maybe I never even liked this sport and I just did it for somebody else. What if that was my revelation?

Glennon Doyle:

What if I realize I hate it?

Abby Wambach:

That’s worse case.

Christen Press:

That’s scary.

Glennon Doyle:

That’s why most people don’t stop their lives. Christen.

Abby Wambach:

That’s right.

Christen Press:

I know.

Glennon Doyle:

That’s why most of us don’t stop our lives because we’re afraid of thinking.

Christen Press:

No, probably my biggest fear was that I would realize I hated it and never want to go back.

Abby Wambach:

And then the universe is so beautiful, giving you … and I know that maybe you’re not here yet, but as soon as I heard you got injured, I thought, “Oh, this is going to be interesting to see how she processes this.” It’s like the universe’s little joke. Like, “Ooh, let’s see how you handle this little bit.” I’m going to show you, give you an opportunity to even question it even a little bit more, because-

Christen Press:

Exactly.

Abby Wambach:

… what the fuck did you not learn on the El Camino that you still-

Glennon Doyle:

It wasn’t a long enough hike, Christen. Listen, we’ve had Cheryl Strayed on. We’ll hook you up, you just need a longer hike.

Christen Press:

I mean, that’s exactly, exactly how I reacted. I was like, I had this plan. I was going to leave soccer and then I was going to come back and show everyone.

Glennon Doyle:

Of course.

Christen Press:

And then it just got blown up in my face. And I was like, “No, I already did the hard part.” And now the hard part’s ahead of me. So, it is, it’s the twisted nature of life.

Glennon Doyle:

Can you talk to us about what you mean when you say my ongoing relationship with my mother? My whole heart just jumped when you said that. Can you just tell us what you mean and how that shows up in your life and what you’re doing and what that relationship is?

Christen Press:

Yes. So, when my mom passed, I got really good advice from a family friend. And he said to me, reflecting on his own experience of losing his mother, that the moment that she died, she was with him forever. And while he was alive, you have to go physically see people. But when someone’s no longer alive, you never have to travel to see them, they’re always there. That articulation is exactly what my experience has been. It’s hard. Relationships are really hard when people are alive and you have to do these things to make sure you feel like you’re prioritizing them, making them feel loved, all these things. And I was like, it was just completely gone. I never had to get on a flight. I never had to make a phone call. My mom was just always with me and because of this journey that she and I went on, I felt like I learned what I’ll call Stacy 2.0, my mom’s name Stacy, was Stacy 2.0, which was a mother that didn’t care about me as an athlete. She just cared about me as a human and that’s who I met and that’s the person I get to continue to cultivate a relationship with.

Christen Press:

So sometimes, when things are going wrong or hard and I feel like, “Oh, I’ve failed and I’ve let these people down.” I’m like, “No, no.” I can even look up to the sky and I’m like, “My mom is here and she doesn’t care about this.” That was something I learned that was wrong, and I’ve now unlearned it. I have this relationship with my mom that’s growing because I can still revert to those old pathways where I’m like, “I missed the goal. My mom must be disappointed.” And now I’m trying to cultivate this new pathway that is when you’re omnipresent and when you’re transcendental, which I think is what happens in a way when you pass, there is no limited human nature.

Christen Press:

And so, I get to experience this relationship with my mom where I know 1000%, she’s proud of me, that she accepts me and I get to live my life with that freedom, and I get to talk to her in a way that I often couldn’t when she was alive, because I had fear of my flaws, fear of her flaws. And now the fear is gone, because she sees me at my worst. There’s no hiding from her. When you’re kid, you’re trying to hide everything from your mom. There’s no hiding anymore. And that’s the relationship that I cultivate and it’s a daily thing, a conversation with my mom and a understanding of each other.

Abby Wambach:

Oh my gosh, it’s like-

Glennon Doyle:

That’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.

Abby Wambach:

I know. I’m crying over here because so many people I know, especially in the LGBTQ space, struggle in many ways, or have struggled with their parents, and the approval of their parents. And I’m just so afraid. I’ve been so afraid of when my parents die, that there will be all this stuff that’s undone. And what you’ve just done is make me feel so much less afraid of that because of your experience. That is such a life giving …

Glennon Doyle:

No more human nature, that’s so good. No more fear, no more … All of that gone and just pure love.

Abby Wambach:

Took my breath away.

Christen Press:

And pure love, that’s it.

Abby Wambach:

Also, I just want to say this. When you stepped away from the game, much like Simone Biles did from the Olympics, the pod squad might not know how revolutionary that is in sport to say, “No, my mental health is going to take priority over this team, over this country, over this medal,” or whatever it is. And I think you and Simone show that it’s possible to step away and come back. I just remember feeling so jealous. Whoa, they get to take care of themselves fully? I mean, it was always an option. I just never took it. I just think that it’s another way you’ve shown your courage, to take that relentless pursuit … For me, your relentless pursuit of your own personal greatness.

Glennon Doyle:

That’s what it was.

Abby Wambach:

Is just so rare.

Glennon Doyle:

So Christen, you’ve already solved death for us, so could we just get, I want to move on to another one-

Abby Wambach:

Solved death.

Glennon Doyle:

… I just feel like we have 20 more minutes, we can solve a couple other things. Because if we can solve death, the rest has to be easy, right? I mean, for real. Death has always-

Abby Wambach:

I’m sweating.

Glennon Doyle:

… still been a problem, ’till now.

Abby Wambach:

I know, I’m sweating, how much that was profound.

Glennon Doyle:

So, I want to talk to you about suffering because I have heard and read you say that you do not choose to suffer, right? That you are unlearning suffering. What I want to say about that is that that is blasphemy in this country. That it is the religious way, the capitalistic way, the parenting way, the romantic love way, the sports way, the American way, that the more you suffer, the more you earn-

Abby Wambach:

No pain, no gain.

Glennon Doyle:

… or the more you … Right, right. No guts, no glory. No pain, no gain. When we talked about this, Abby said, “No, I fully believed when I was playing, if I suffer the most, I will be the best.” So, you think that there’s another way. You said, “There is a general consensus in sports that you just suffer, you push through it and keep going and that’s what makes you tough. But I believe in my heart that there’s another way.” Can you tell us what’s the other way?

Abby Wambach:

Yes.

Glennon Doyle:

Great.

Christen Press:

My own philosophies.

Glennon Doyle:

It’s amazing, Christen.

Christen Press:

I don’t know anything. I’m like, “Oh sure. I can tell you about this.”

Glennon Doyle:

You can.

Christen Press:

Just, I know nothing about anything, but-

Abby Wambach:

No, you fixed death, so you do know something.

Christen Press:

But I think there’s a fine line between discipline and suffering. I do think that suffering is a part of life, but with acceptance, the suffering isn’t actually suffering, I think it’s discipline. So, that’s where it’s a little bit tricky. So, when I think about sport, the consensus of have to run ’till you’re sick. You have to give up so much, that’s like an endless suffering. And when I think of myself on the field and I put myself on the field emotionally, there’s this unpleasant thing that happens to many athletes, when they’re not in flow state, where you’re playing but you’re also watching a movie of yourself playing and it’s a highlight reel of all your mistakes. And it’s very distracting from the actual playing.

Christen Press:

I think there’s a lot of decisions that you can make on and off the field as a human, as an athlete, so that your whole life is more aligned in a way that’s blissful. I actively work towards a flow state, where playing soccer would be the most blissful and joyous thing that I ever did. I believe that if I loved it, if I’m laughing, if I’m smiling, that’s when I’m at my best. There’s this belief that you want it so bad, and that’s what motivates you. But what if that’s not what motivates you, like the trophy? What if it’s something much bigger than that, that you’re working towards? Because what happens … and I mean, everybody knows this, you win the trophy, you get the medal and you feel empty inside. And so, it’s this big laugh in your face moment where you’re like, “I worked so hard to get here and I’m still not where I want to be.”

Christen Press:

And so, the letting go of that fixed goal is the letting go of the suffering, and it’s working towards acceptance and bliss. There’s this quote, I think it’s Buddha, says, “Someday, you’ll tilt your head back and look at the sky. And you’ll just laugh because everything is exactly how it should be.” And it’s this idea that life is perfect, we just are missing it. We’ve put all these barriers and expectations and unhealthy routines between us and the perfection, but the perfection’s still there. I think sport is a way that actually breaks down those barriers because no matter what relationship you have with sport, there is always moments that great athletes, people who run, humans, they find that bliss, they find that transcendence, they find that flow and it helps you dip into it. I can imagine dancers, all different types of people, artists, these creative forces help you find that. And my hope is that there’s the more times you find that space, that flow, that ease, that joy, then the closer it gets to you, so you can keep finding it more and more. The more I find it, the better I’ll play, for sure.

Christen Press:

So, if you want to just do it to get to the next place, you probably missed the mark, but it becomes something that you can train. And that’s when I walked on El Camino de Santiago, it was like I was able to find that state of presence every day for a week. Then when I left, it has been my job to find that place in a regular life. When I have other things to do, when it’s not that simple, when I go back on the field, how can I access that state of joy and flow? That’s not to say my life is without suffering, but I do believe in this reality that can exist, that’s bliss.

Abby Wambach:

It’s so far different than the average pro athlete’s way, where it’s numbers, heart rates, repetitions, how many sprints you can do, how many calories you’re expending, all of that stuff feels so counter-cultural, what you’re trying to create for yourself. Are you trying to show this way to the people around you on your teams?

Glennon Doyle:

Ooh, that’s good. Are you a Spirit Spice evangelist or do you keep your Spirit Spice to yourself?

Christen Press:

Maybe a little half, because I think I’m still on my way. I still have so much to learn and to get to understand before I feel satisfied with it. I guess maybe you never feel satisfied, it’s like a giant catch 22. But I think the people that are closest to me, they know it, because they know my hurt and my journey and how I had to let go of that to get here. So, in that world, there’s no other option then for me to go deep into my sense of spirituality.

Christen Press:

But what you said, Abby, is so important because it’s still about numbers and sprints. It’s still there, but there is this way to do it that is intertwined with acceptance. And a very simple example is running. You’re going to run so hard, whatever it is, your mile. And it’s going to physically hurt, it’s going to burn your muscles are going to burn. You’re going to get sick. And that’s something you have to do. Whether or not you want to be a Spirit Spice or not, it’s just part of the job. But you can actually have your brain focus on certain things like certain parts of your body.

Christen Press:

So sometimes, when I’m doing hard cardio that’s unpleasant, I do a body scan. So, I’m running and I’m like, “Okay, what does my toe feel like?” I’ll scan each part of my body and just that simple shift of awareness away from whatever part of my body is really hurting, it makes it so that it doesn’t hurt, it’s literally like a magic trick. I try to tell people this, you can just focus on something else, stay in tune with that and you can still do the suffering. But for me now, it’s discipline. Now it’s the discipline of doing the work and it’s the discipline of doing the training of your brain, so that your life is in the direction that you want it to be.

Abby Wambach:

I like that, I mean-

Christen Press:

You got to try it, little body scan.

Abby Wambach:

Little body scan.

Glennon Doyle:

Body scan.

Christen Press:

Little body scan, mid exercise.

Abby Wambach:

I used to just count for some reason when I was in the depths of it. I’d just count out loud, so that I wouldn’t think about it, so maybe I’ll-

Christen Press:

Yeah, exactly.

Abby Wambach:

Just something.

Glennon Doyle:

Christen, you helped lead the charge for racial and gender justice in the NWSL. So, I just think it’s super important, sometimes when we talk about spirituality or any of this, people tend to think either, or. If you’re talking about the spiritual world, you are not boots on the ground involved in justice work, which is just … couldn’t be less true here. Once again, this is and, both situation for Christen.

Glennon Doyle:

So, you said, “The revolution is not about what you say or post,” Instagram and TikTok are going to be … They’re going to have problems with that, Christen. “It is about the inner work you do today and every day to fuel a lifetime of activism, the work starts within.” How does racial justice start within?

Christen Press:

This thought has come up so many times while we’re talking. I believe that the thing you can do to help the world is to help yourself and to cultivate peace and energy. Because I believe in that energy exchange, that’s my spirituality. And so in order to help others be well, you must be well yourself. And that’s where the two things get tied. I think there is a place for anger and frustration, and all the things that come, I think, with activism and fighting against status quo structures. But I think there’s also a place for a break and a place for cultivating your own sense of being grounded, so that you can go again and fight again. And I think that they’re actually really intertwined.

Christen Press:

When I think of my identity as a black woman, I think so much of my understanding about race came from this place of fear and a place of anger and a little bit of confusion and insecurity that comes from fear and anger. I think that that’s when it goes back to inner work, like me understanding my identity, my family, my history, how I came to be, what is my purpose? There’s a lot of guilt, I think, that goes into activism. It’s like, I’m not doing enough. I’m not contributing. I should be doing this. Look what that person’s doing. And that’s balanced by knowing yourself, being grounded, knowing your truth, knowing that can’t all get solved in one day and just being accepting of taking that next step.

Christen Press:

For me, that’s looked like [inaudible 00:46:58] our players’ association, so that we could take some power back from the federation and fight for equality. And it’s looked like having to have really hard conversations with reporters about coaches that were treating people unfairly. And that takes a strength that can only come from being well and being me and being you. I just think that that balance is important. I think it’s actually crazy to think that people think justice fighting and spirituality are at odds because for me, they’re exactly the same. And it’s like your belief in a greater good is how you get through the work. It’s how you do the work, it’s your why at the end.

Glennon Doyle:

So, you said energy exchange and the way that works is your spirituality. Can you tell me what you mean?

Christen Press:

Yes. So, I think every person that you interact with, you just have an energy exchange. I think people who are really good at it, you don’t even have to be in the room with them and you feel the presence. And there’s just like a … So simple, like a warmth that you feel, something that makes you at ease. I think that that’s an idealistic version of the best form of a human. It’s the human that lifts their head back and laughs because everything’s perfect. But I think that that’s something that we all are working towards.

Christen Press:

Ultimately, what I want to do on this Earth is just leave it a little happier, leave it a little safer, and you can think really macro and you’re like, “Okay, then I have to change this policy,” but it’s like, you can also just make someone feel safe in a moment and that’s the energy exchange. I think that we are a collective, where I believe in oneness. I believe that my wellbeing is tied to your wellbeing. And so, the more well that I am, the more well that you are. And in that humanity, we can all move in the same direction if we’re in that interchange of energy. I think that that’s special and it’s also very motivating for me because when I have an interaction with someone, especially when I’m being my introverted self, I feel like, oh I want to protect me,” or I want to keep this from me, or this is my boundary.

Christen Press:

And those things are important, but there’s something that’s just so life giving to me, to just know that a smile, or just a warmth, it’s contagious and it can lift somebody and that person can then spread it on. And in that way, simple moments can have massive impact.

Glennon Doyle:

The idea of change the world but the world is often just the world that’s within your fingertips, just the world around you. So beautiful. If we are suffering and we’re like, “All right, I’m just going to do a body scan.” And then it won’t be suffering, it’ll be awareness. But my question is, how do you know when you’re in a situation that’s the wrong kind of hard? You shouldn’t be just body scanning, you should be body leaving. How do you know? Have you ever been in a situation where the answer was not acceptance? The answer was end this. Because people are always asking us about that. I think it’s one of the best questions. How do you know when to dig deep and how do you know when to quit digging?

Christen Press:

Wow, I love that question. I’m puzzling over it. I’m thinking of environments that I’ve been in that were not safe or good. I’m the type of person who I have really high standards. So, I speak about spirituality except this, but I have a really high standard for things I don’t put up with a lot. I came from a tough family, so I never feel like if something is triggering or unsafe, I never attach that to the same place where I’m trying to understand myself better. Those are two separate things. But if I think an unsafe soccer environment, where things are going wrong, we’ve all seen NWFL, it’s happened in all phases of our career. I do think that I have to accept it to fix it. I don’t have to accept it to live with it, but I accept it to fix it because when you’re volatile or when you’re overly emotional, then that’s not the best place to make progress. And so, in order to have the conversations, the hard conversations, and do the work, I have to be able to have processed the bad parts of it. But I do think that to some degree that comes naturally to me, I make boundaries and stick to that.

Abby Wambach:

Give it us an example of boundary setting, because that’s a big topic of this conversation and in my marriage, I’m still learning.

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah, what are some of your boundaries? In friendship or in relationships with other people? How do you teach people how to treat you?

Christen Press:

I mean, the most severe example, it’s like I have a relationship where I will only interact with this person while the sun’s up because the sun goes down and it’s a scary situation. It’s a relationship that I’ve been dealing with my whole life, where I have felt unsafe. It wasn’t until two years ago and I worked with a therapist, that this idea came about like, I don’t have to put myself in that situation. Even though it’s a person that I love dearly and I have to see, and I feel guilty when I don’t and all of those things, but I think it has been a revolutionary boundary for me because it’s like-

Glennon Doyle:

I love that.

Christen Press:

… I can still love this person within the way that I can. And my boundary doesn’t mean that I don’t love them. It actually allows me to love them because if I was going to see this person at night, I would not love them.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes. Boundaries are good for relationships. Yes, that’s beautiful.

Glennon Doyle:

I love that. Only during sun hours. I mean you can say-

Christen Press:

The sun goes down and I’m out.

Glennon Doyle:

I love it. I want to talk about the 2015 ticker-tape parade because I read something that you wrote about that that was so beautiful. It really feels like the way that you describe it, that you experiencing that first ticker tape parade led to the equal pay settlement. Because you say that you stood there and you looked at the people celebrating you and how many people were in those streets because they cared that you won. And then you compared that to how you were being treated and paid and it didn’t align and you had an awakening.

Christen Press:

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

Wow.

Christen Press:

No, I mean you just said it exactly how I experienced it. I think in 2015, I had no idea what the magnitude of that tournament would be. When you’re in a world championship, Abby, you know better than me, you’re in isolation, you’re in a bubble and you’re heads down just trying to get through to the next game. And then you come out of this experience and that in itself would be a whole podcast because it’s really mentally hard. But you come out and you open your eyes and you’re like, “Oh yeah, something else other than my World Cup exists.”

Christen Press:

But what happened was we opened our eyes and our lives had changed. We went into the tournament as somewhat well known people and we came out as these beacons of hope for people. And that was a complete surprise for me. I didn’t know that that was going to happen. I had no idea. I think people who had played another world championships probably knew, but I was like, “What the heck, how is this happening?” I didn’t know anyone was watching, you know?

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah.

Christen Press:

Other than people in the stands. And then we had that ticker-tape parade, which was the perfect picturesque setting of so many people crying and cheering. And it’s the absolute best part of sport, coupled with the hope of equality and those two things coming together. It was a moment, it was like a reckoning where I was like, “Wow, we’re extremely valuable in this moment from a complete business sense.” Of course, the reason that it was impactful to me, totally separate. But I was like, “Hey, a lot of people want something from us right now. We have huge value in our market. Why aren’t we being compensated that way?”

Christen Press:

I think that’s what started this re-upping of our players’ association, to take back power because it was this knowledge of our own value. I think that’s what the world does, is they try to hide your value from you so that you don’t know. And in this moment, there was no hiding it because there was thousands of people throwing tiny pieces of paper at us. And that was enough to know that we deserved better.

Glennon Doyle:

Oh my God, it’s so good.

Abby Wambach:

It makes me remember. I actually talked to Glennon a lot about this in terms of post-retirement guilt and the consciousness that we have now and seeing you all come to settlement with US Soccer. I just remember feeling like I didn’t do enough. I just accepted such mediocre standards for so long and I’ve had to actually do a lot of personal work in accepting that part because I do think that there is a role we all play on this spectrum.

Glennon Doyle:

Continuum.

Abby Wambach:

This continuum of justice, but I can’t help but look back and go, “Oh, I just took such minimal … ” I mean, we have this conversation all the time about business. She’s like, “Abby, you are worth more than this. You can actually go back and say, ‘No.’ ” I could go on and talk about this forever. But there was nobody that was more proud and more happy for you all, because it almost needed us old folks, like us old OGs needed to not be in the team, for you to actually get this accomplished. Sometimes the old does need to go out for the new to be able to step into a new paradigm. And you all did that so well.

Christen Press:

But you know, I feel like we all feel that we haven’t done enough. I think from the outside world, a settlement was such a massive accomplishment, but there is so much work to be done. So, the same feeling that you’re expressing, I absolutely still feel it. The way I always talk to people about it is when you join the US national team, you’re handed a torch because something happened long before I was on the team that made that team just a symbol of hope for people. That comes with great responsibility, but you’re handed this torch and you carry it as high and as far as you can, and then you hand it off, and any success we had was built on the work that you did, and same will be of the next generation. I think that that’s kind of a drag on fighting for justice and activism in general, that it’s so riddled with guilt. I wish we can all be rid of that, because in my own life, I think the all time I’m not doing enough, but that, I know it’s wrong, so I try to fight it. And I’m like, “I’m doing what I can. That’s something.” But it’s so true and I think it paralyzes people and makes them afraid to do anything, to do what they can, because it will still feel it’s not enough.

Glennon Doyle:

When you think that you’re not doing enough, do you think of your mom? When you’re thinking of something that you know is not true, that you know somebody who loved you without human nature would not believe, does that help you to have an actual relationship with someone who is free of all human bullshit so that you can get fixed?

Christen Press:

Out of it? Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s true. I think that I’ll have these thoughts and then it’s not even that conscious, but it’s just like, I can even just think, “Mom.” And then I’m like, “Ah.” And it’s just this reminder that something’s bigger than this small thing that I’m feeling, that you feel it and it feels so big, but it’s not the end. And now my mom just represents that for me. So, it pulls me out and gives me some perspective. So, thanks, mom. Keeping me going.

Glennon Doyle:

Okay, Christen Press. With that, we’re going to end. Our next right thing, I just think I’m thinking already about the beginning of this conversation and about how much suffering could be saved from if we would communicate more with our people. If you’re a parent and you’ve got a kid, don’t assume that they know that you love them just without any of the achievements. Tell them, tell them, tell them, tell them. I’m going to today. And also, let’s just do what Christen does and just do our best to make the world a little bit happier and a little bit safer even if it’s just the people in the room we’re in.

Abby Wambach:

Well, let me tell you, my life post-soccer has gotten exponentially better. I know that in my heart, I’ve probably wanted to be more like you and work on the full humanity of myself. I was afraid that it would distract from the soccer, so I did opposite. I just did all soccer and then now I’m just fully into my humanity. And the fact that you’re so ahead of that game makes me know that your retirement is going to be filled. You are not going to believe how much joy you can experience without this other thing that became so much of who you are, the thing that you spent most of your time doing. I keep telling all the players who are still playing. I’m like, “Just you wait, it gets-“

Christen Press:

Just wait.

Abby Wambach:

It gets so much better.

Christen Press:

The other side.

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah, the other side.

Christen Press:

Thank you so much for having me.

Glennon Doyle:

Christen, you’re a dream. We adore you so much.

Christen Press:

It’s been a joy.

Glennon Doyle:

We will see you at the games.

Christen Press:

Love you both.

Glennon Doyle:

Love you.

Christen Press:

See you at the game, see you.

Glennon Doyle:

Bye pod squad.

Abby Wambach:

Bye.

#christen press #glennon doyle #abby wambach #we can do hard things #i don't why i felt the need to do this but i did #you have no idea how long this took me to do

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