-[theme music playing] -[Reese Witherspoon reading]
-So fun! -Whoo!
-Cheers! -Cheers!
Hi!
[Reese] I'm doing a show highlighting powerful,
ambitious women in different fields.
Let's go back to the top of the frame.
Okay, how did I do?
[Reese] And I would love to share with you
what makes these women so inspirational to me.
[gasps]
Love, Reese.
[Reese] I'm on my way to meet activist, speaker,
and New York Times best-selling author, Glennon Doyle.
-Hi. -How are you?
[Reese] Glennon started a blog called Momastery,
which led to her two incredibly honest and moving memoirs,
Carry On, Warrior,
and Love Warrior.
She's also the founder and president of Together Rising,
a non-profit organization that has raised
more than $9.5 million dollars for people in need.
Her wife, Abby Wambach,
is equally as amazing.
A two-time Olympic gold medalist
and World Cup champion,
Abby is the all-time leading scorer in international soccer history.
She's also the author of her own
New York Times best-selling memoir, Forward.
And since retiring from soccer, Abby has dedicated herself
to fighting for equality and inclusion across all industries.
[Glennon] Coffee & Revolution, baby.
Coffee & Revolution, baby.
[Glennon laughs]
[Reese] Oh, I'm so excited to sit with you
-and talk. -Me, too.
I read your book, Love Warrior,
and the idea of...
[sighs] ...going through this process of life
and relationships and love
and the way you synthesize it and the way you speak about it
is so beautiful to me.
And it was different than anything I had ever read before.
And I just want you to know, like, it touched my heart.
And I know you've touched so many people.
When did you start writing all these feelings down?
'Cause I know you're a mom with a couple of young kids.
Yes. I mean, dripping with children all the time.
I feel the same. I have so many kids.
It's like too much! Not enough! All the things, all at once.
Um, so I started writing Love Warrior, actually,
right after, uh, my marriage just imploded.
So, I was in therapy
and, um, my husband told me that he'd been unfaithful
throughout our whole marriage.
And I was just completely blindsided by it.
You know, when you're a mom and you go through something like that,
you just don't even have time to process it.
-Right. -Because there's still all the various
people who need all the things and snacks and the field trips...
-[laughs] Snacks. -[Glennon] You know?
I mean, nobody ever stops asking for snacks.
-It's so true. -Even if you're in the middle
of a tragedy.
And you're so busy taking care of other people's needs
that I don't think you have time to process
a lot of these deep feelings that you're having.
Which is actually really, now that I think about it,
super problematic for women, right?
Because you have to process it to get past it.
So, I remember reading
that Virginia Woolf had said, "Every woman needs a room of her own,"
and I didn't have a room of my own
because I was living in this very small house.
So, I started getting up really early and writing in my closet.
-[laughs] -Like 5:00 in the morning, just...
It was the only time where I could break down and rage
and feel all the feelings.
I mean, I have felt so much shame because it was all public
and I felt so much fear about the future and...
So, your divorce was very public in your community,
is that you're saying? Or because you had a blogger community.
Yeah! And I was like, um, a "Mommy blogger."
I was like a Christian mommy blogger back then.
-Yeah. Momastery. Yeah. -Right, right, right.
So, up until then, I had been, like, this truth teller.
That was my thing. I was just, you know,
talking about the good parts of parenthood and the bad parts,
but now there was this thing in my life that affected Craig too
and the kids, too.
And I couldn't process it publicly
'cause that wouldn't have been fair to them.
-In real time. Right? -Right, right.
So, I get up every morning and just rage in my closet.
And that was like my time, on the computer.
-That was my time to get it all out. -Yeah.
And then I remember few months in,
my editor wrote to me, and she said, "How are you?"
I hate that freaking question. 'Cause like, what?
-Like, how am I this minute? -You're gonna cry.
-Or how I was I three hours ago? -Yeah. "Don't ask."
Or how will I be by 7:00 p.m.?
Like, I don't understand that question.
Which is why everyone just says, "Fine." Right? And lies.
So, I just sent her, like, a few pages of this ragey... journal.
I was like, "You wanna know how I am? Here's how I am."
-Yeah. "Thanks for asking." -Yeah, and she read it,
and was like, "Eventually, this will be a book."
-Wow. -So, it took me years to get it
to the place where it was no longer a ragey journal
and was a memoir that, you know,
I think applies to everybody and not just me.
Let me ask you, like, having kids and being so honest
about your life and blogging about your life
and your kids are there,
-and they're still young kids. -[Glennon] Mmm-hmm.
Was that difficult for you to talk so honestly about
your life when that might affect their...
I don't know, their lives, their development?
If I didn't wanna talk about my life openly
-because of my children... -Mmm-hmm.
I think that would inherently mean
that I had some kind of shame about my life.
Mmm.
Like my job is not to teach my children,
like, model this fake idea
that we have of what a perfect life looks like.
Right.
Well, I love what you say about going through pain.
You can't skip over it, you can't go under it.
The pain is part of your life experience, it's part of the beauty of your story.
I stayed in my marriage for a long time
because I have this middle child
who's super sensitive.
-She's just all feelings, you know? -Yeah.
And I have told myself forever that
she was overly sensitive and that she couldn't handle life
and so I protect her from everything
and I was certain that a divorce would take her out.
It would break her.
And one day I remember looking at her and thinking,
I'm staying for her,
but would I want this marriage for her?
Right.
If she were sitting across from me,
telling me my own story, what would I tell her to do?
-Right? -That's an incredible exercise.
Yeah. And so, I thought, "It's not our job as mothers to be martyrs.
It's not our job to show our kids how to slowly die."
[Reese] Yeah.
It's our job to show them how to live bravely
and follow our truth
-and live fully. -Yeah.
-Even when it hurts. -I agree.
Like, I remember being 21 and finding out I was pregnant
and went through all the range of emotions that a woman goes through,
like, when she finds out she's pregnant for the first time and...
And getting to this place where I was like, "Okay, I'm having this baby,"
and then I found out it was a little girl...
-Mmm-hmm. -And I remember thinking,
instead of just living my life for me,
I'm living my life
as a model of a behavior
for another human woman.
And that is profound when that occurs to you,
'cause it doesn't always happen like, quickly.
[Glennon] No.
And it blew my mind. And it helped to watch a lot of Oprah.
Yes, of course.
And it's a complete different set of responsibilities,
but that's how I felt when I read your book.
I was like, "Little girls need to see
that this modelling for this...
For who we are as women needs to change."
[Glennon] The lives that we are living right now have to be
the truest, most beautiful lives we can imagine.
Right? And so, you know, divorcing and remarrying
and having a blended family and all of that,
it hasn't been easy,
but it's been really true and really beautiful.
I love watching it,
witnessing it for the world, what you and Abby put out there
with your children and your ex-husband.
And it's really beautiful because it is living.
And trust me, I'm sure it is not easy all the time. [laughs]
Oh, it's a piece of cake daily, Reese.
-We just walk around in sunshine. -I love you.
-Just shine out of your butt. -Yes, we do.
It's just like on Instagram, really.
But I love that it's honest. It's brutally honest.
And I think there's this really interesting thing,
that I think a lot of people live through their kids
or their kids are their life,
and it's really hard to separate the two.
Um, but ultimately, you are this individual on your own journey...
Absolutely.
And these little people are there too to witness it and stuff.
But I do think denying any part of yourself...
I don't know, I mean, I guess these are just kind of questions
-I have myself about my life. -Mmm-hmm.
And, you know, as things change and you get older and you're like,
"I don't feel like covering up anymore.
I don't feel like making it nice for anybody anymore."
No.
All these opinions that people have, I think it's an incredible time
that women and people all over the world,
people of color, people of LGBTQ
-are finding their voices. -Mmm.
I'm, like, half a foot in the LGBTQ world
and half a foot in the Christian world.
So, it's a really interesting place to live. [laughs]
-Yeah. -Right? It's like, whoo!
-So, um... -I can't even imagine your comments.
[laughs] Your comments on Twitter.
After I fell in love with Abby, everybody...
The only question anyone asked me is, "Are you gay?"
"So, are you gay now?"
-Like, it would get to the point-- -'Cause they need to know.
-Yeah and then-- -And put you somewhere in their mind.
Exactly.
And Reese, I used to sit down at dinner with Abby and be like,
"We're not getting up from this table until we figure out what the hell I am."
[laughs]
"Because I need a freaking answer, okay.
So, we're just gonna land somewhere and that's what we're gonna be, okay."
And what's the answer?
So, I don't know!
I'm a writer, and words are so important to me that they're true.
-I'm going with fluid. -[Reese] Fluid is good.
I feel like fluid is good. I'm sexually fluid.
I feel like I'm faithfully fluid.
-Okay. -I'm sick of like, the...
This idea of fixed identity.
Then it leads to like this fixed ideology,
like, politically and religion and sexuality, so...
I actually did lot of work in the gay community
before I fell in love with Abby.
And so I've worked with a lot of families
who have children who at the age of 11 or 12
come out to their parents.
It's really interesting to look at the difference
between the kids who come out and have had parents
who have taught them from the beginning
that love is love and that people are people
and that God loves every one of us the same,
compared to children who have sat in church pews,
where they've been taught something different
about homosexuality or gender, whatever.
And the amazing thing is when I talk to those parents,
most of them didn't believe that crap.
Like, they didn't believe that gay people were second-class citizens.
They didn't believe that God hated gay people,
but they allowed that message to be poured into their kids.
When Elie Wiesel said that,
"Silence helps the tormentors, not the tormented."
[Glennon] Mmm-hmm.
And I find that I just...
It keeps coming back to me about silence.
Mmm-hmm.
And the importance of speaking up
even when you're not gonna be affected by it
or it doesn't change your life in some big way.
But I don't know, I think I have a total different feeling about...
About the way we conduct ourselves.
Me, too. I just don't believe in anything
that requires any motive exclusivity anymore.
Yeah.
Like, it's "Either everybody's in or I can't be in."
[sighs] I'm so happy to hear you say that.
So, tell me about Coffee & Revolution. It's how you wake up.
Yeah, so this happened,
well, pretty soon after the election,
I used to wake up and check my Twitter feed,
which I guess is not a very spiritually guru thing to do.
I'm supposed to be, like, meditating,
but actually what I would do is check my Twitter feed.
And, um, I just...
I wake up super early,
like, I get up at like 4:30 in the morning.
-Ooh! -I know.
And Abby gets up like three hours later.
So, by the time she wakes up,
I have had like eight cups of coffee already.
-[laughs] -And I have, like, taken in
and solved all the world's problems.
Abby has woken up to an actual easel in our bedroom.
-Like, I've brought an easel... -[laughs]
An easel with lists of ways
we're gonna take down the patriarchy that day.
-A white board and detailed summary of-- -Yes. Yes.
Detailed steps, but the world will be fixed by 4:00 p.m., right.
So, we just started this morning time, every morning, where it would be,
"Okay, Coffee & Revolution."
And I'd have, like, the plan... The revolution plan for the day.
And so, now it's just what we do,
-every morning. -I love that.
It's just, like, so amazing to have a partner in the world
that's on fire for the same things that you're on fire about.
-Yeah. -You know?
-Makes it all worthwhile. -Yeah!
Um, it's actually International Women and Sports Day today.
-Wow! -So, she is speaking
to some kids about just the importance of girls staying in sports
and all the leadership stuff that kids learn there.
-Well, let's talk to her. -Let's do it.
Yay!
We met in a back room at a hotel--
[chuckles] That sounds so shady.
-"We met in the back room of the hotel." -No, we were going to an event together,
and when I got into the room, she stood up and she just says, like,
-"Can I hug you?" -Because I'm so subtle.
It was not like meeting someone, it was like recognizing someone.
Hi! Look who I have!
-Hi, baby. -[Glennon] Hi, baby.
-Hi. -Hi.
-[Reese] How nice to meet you. -[Abby] Huge fan. How's it going?
[Renata] Hi. Nice to meet you.
-Welcome to the LA84 Foundation. -This is incredible.
I felt such similar things at the time,
in terms of being like, "What is this?
I like her, but she's straight, and she has three kids,
and she's married, and this is weird."
And you know, we find ourselves...
What is this? Almost two years later.
I still love you so much, it's amazing.
[Glennon] You guys go in.
-I'm gonna stay out here. Okay? -Okay.
[Renata] So, we're the legacy of the Olympic Games from '84.
We fund undeserved, under-resourced communities
to provide kids an opportunity for sports
and really promoting girls' activity in sports.
-Hey, hi. -[girls] Hi.
-Hello. -[Reese] How's it going?
Do you guys know Reese Witherspoon?
Yeah, you're from Legally Blonde.
[Reese laughs] Yes.
-"Bend..." -[both] "And snap!"
Yes. Oh, my God, I can't believe Abby Wambach just did that.
-[Abby] Yes. -Do you all know Abby Wambach?
-[girls] Yeah. -How's it going?
I used to play soccer. Do you guys... Anybody play soccer here?
Who else... What do you guys play? What other sports?
-[girls] Volleyball. -Volleyball.
[Reese] A lot of volleyball.
So, what's going on?
[girls] Nothing much.
What did they tell you guys about what was happening today?
[girl] They said we're supposed to ask you questions.
You're supposed to ask us questions.
-I love questions. -I do, too.
[Abby] How about you?
So, listen to this.
When I was five years old and I started playing,
there wasn't women's soccer.
There wasn't professional women's soccer.
That kind of came, really, about in 1996 when the women had the Olympics.
When I was growing up, I looked up to Michael Jordan.
Have you guys ever heard of him?
-[girls] Yes. -[Abby] Right?
And so, now you guys are in a unique position
where you actually have other women to look up to.
Women that look like you, that talk like you,
that might wear the same clothes as you,
that maybe come from the same place that you come from.
Right? So, you guys, because you can see it,
you might one day become a professional athlete, right?
You have more of a chance of doing that
than somebody that was in my position, who...
I had to actually, like, try to figure out how to create my dream.
-Yeah. -Did you have any challenges in your life?
Okay, so here's the deal with life.
Life is full of challenges.
Okay?
Life is not meant to be easy.
I have so many opportunities
and so many moments in my life that I can look back on
and think, "You know what, that was a really hard time,"
but that's when I grew the most."
So, if you fail a test, or you don't make a team,
or you're not in the starting roster, those are opportunities for growth.
Rather than, "Oh, I didn't make it" or, "I stink" or "I failed,"
you have to train your mind to maintain a level of optimism.
And the way you talk to yourself, internal self-talk,
is that, "This is a moment and an opportunity to be better."
'Cause it's never about what happens to you guys,
it's always about how you react to it.
Let's get Reese a question. Yes?
[girl speaking]
Yeah, growing up, I did a lot of sports growing up.
When I was reading Abby's book,
I thought it was really cool 'cause I had the same experience
where I was the only girl on the boys soccer team.
It wasn't because I was really great and I scored a lot of goals,
it was because my mom worked after school and so did my dad
and nobody could pick me up and I was like,
"I can either study and read my books
-or I could go join the team." -That's amazing.
And it was really fun
and, um, and I just like people, and I like to talk.
So, it was really good for me.
I have a question for you guys. Do you guys know what Title IX is?
-[girl] No. -Okay.
Over 40 years ago,
Title IX was this law that was put into motion.
What this law did, it required universities
to treat men and women the same.
Any of you guys wanna get a college scholarship?
-[girl] Yeah. -Right?
So, because they offer certain scholarships
in the athletic world to men,
they had to start offering the same amount of scholarships to women.
So, from Title IX, there was a huge influx of female collegiate athletes.
I'm a product of it.
And I'm really lucky to have had it
because if I didn't have that law that was forcing colleges
to make sure that the girls and boys had the same rights,
I wouldn't be sitting here today.
[Abby] Women deserve equality.
They deserve equal pay.
They deserve more seats at the table.
What are you guys doing for the rest of the day?
-We all have soccer practice. -[Abby] You all have soccer practice.
Well, very cool.
We have to start being mindful
of how we're gonna process and get there.
So, we need to teach people how to interact with each other.
We need to teach women, young girls
how to become the leaders of our future.
-All right. Bye, y'all. -[Abby] Okay, see you guys.
-Thank you. -[girl 1] Bye.
-[girl 2] We'll miss you. -[girl 3] You, too.
[Reese] It's hard to imagine that women before us
did not have the opportunities for scholarships
or sport programs.
Also... [sighs]
...Title IX is not gonna be effective if that generation doesn't enforce it.
-Right. -And it has to be enforced.
Right. I think that what we have to do is,
we have to keep working on trying to keep girls in sports.
You know, we have two girls that play sports, that play soccer.
And since I've gotten onboard, they're playing travel club soccer.
Interesting.
All the soccer, all the days.
[Reese] So, it sort of started to develop more when you came around.
Rather than rec league, you know.
I was like, "I think that maybe they should be
in a little bit more challenged environment."
[Glennon] 'Cause you scored more goals than any man or woman
-in any professional soccer? -Yes.
It's actually been really beneficial, I think, for both of them.
I mean, you could speak more to how much Tish has changed.
But do you think it's maybe that we are a result-oriented society
instead of enjoying the journey or learning the lessons,
even if you're not the star of the sport?
Yeah. Well, I think parents are having a lot to do
with what's happening in the world of their kids.
You talk a lot about helicopter parenting
and that's kind of the memo that your generation of parents got.
Like, "My child cannot have a scar or mark
-or feel an ounce..." -Or a loss.
Yeah. "...or feel an ounce of pain for their whole life.
It's my job to protect them from pain."
And the things that Glennon goes around and talks so eloquently about.
"It's not our job nor our right to protect our kids from pain."
It's actually, what we need to be doing
is pointing our children into the fires of their life."
I'm literally quoting you verbatim right now.
Keep going. I wanna see how this...
-[Reese] Very impressive. -Yeah.
So, it's our job as parents
to keep pointing our kids into the fires of their lives
because it's not our job to protect them from their pain,
it's our job to point them and to walk them
through the fires of their life
so they can figure out that they're fireproof.
-[Reese] Wow. -Yeah.
-It's so important. -Yeah, it is.
So cool to see her with kids 'cause they just light up.
You're so good with kids. I just, like...
We were talking about how you got thrown into becoming a parent.
Yeah.
-[Reese] This year! Naturally. -I know, I know.
The fact that Glennon had three children, um...
My whole career... I mean, I was the youngest of seven,
so I always felt like I wanted a baby because I was the baby.
And then travelling the world and some of my teammates,
they would have children, and so there would be 20 aunts
that could take care of these children on the road.
Um, it just became something that felt so natural to me.
And so, when I met Glennon and we were able to
move our relationship into real serious nature,
where I'm meeting these children and developing relationships with them...
Um, I don't know, it just feels like something I've been always...
I've always been meant to be a mother.
And I thank her all the time for raising children that...
I mean, these kids are amazing.
We're raising this feminist boy who...
It took him forever to have his first kiss
because she's been teaching him about consent his whole life.
-[Glennon] He's terrified. -[laughing]
He's like, "Just don't. No one touch anyone ever."
[both laughing]
My mom said, "Just, everybody just..."
We talk a lot about female empowerment and all this stuff,
but it's just as important to talk about raising boys.
-[Abby] It is so important. -And masculinity
and the idea that they all have to be athletic and superheroes,
but also not cry and not have an emotion.
And it's so important that as we're talking about the...
[clicks tongue] ...awareness of women and raising young girls
that it's in the same conversation about how we're raising sons.
It has to be because we're leaving...
You know, we talk about this all the time,
the opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy.
That is not what we're doing here.
-[Reese] I so agree with that. -We want an equal world
-for both men and women. -Right.
And being a feminist is...
Literally, that's the definition, is just equality for everybody.
Just like the way you told the Title IX story,
these kids need to know that something came before them
that was actually a totally different path that we chopped down for them.
You're chopping down paths, and I love it.
I wanna make sure, for damn sure,
that the people who come behind me don't have the same problems.
-Bye! -Bye. This has been so fun.
Every good thing that I want in my life,
um, I also have to fight for other people to have as well.
That's what it means to love others as much as you love yourself.
So, if you are, um,
a person who enjoys education for your children
and safe land for your kids to live on
and marrying the love of your life,
then you better be ready to fight for those things
for everyone else also.
[theme music playing]