Okay, everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. I have big hopes for today's

episode. So listen, Pod Squad, we have been listening to every voice now. You leave us.

And one of your most repeated themes is this. At this point in this unbelievable endless

abyss of COVID and Delta and world-shaking politics, fear and anger and numbness and

stuckness. Our relationships are suffering. If you are struggling in your marriage or parenting

or extended family or work relationships, I just wish that I could play you the voice

males. So you could understand how very not alone you are. As I listened this weekend,

I kept thinking of that old poem by Baba Fareed that pretty much sums up all my work and

it goes like this. I thought I was alone who suffered. I went on top of the house and

found every house on fire. Today, we're going to introduce you to a special person who knows

a hell of a lot about houses on fire. Abby and I met her years ago. We sat on a stage

with her and she helped us understand that perhaps our fights, the ones about food and

money and cabinets and toothbrushes were not at all about food and money and cabinets

and toothbrushes, but they were about control and power. And I find that found that very

annoying at the time to tell you the damn truth. But it also led me two years of thinking

about how when I control Abby, I am not loving her because love requires trust and we only

control things we don't trust. I will tell you that Abby and I haven't really stopped

trying to control each other yet, but now when we do it, we are aware we're doing it

and we call that progress. So our guest and Abby and I met again years later at a week

long conference and we spent dinners and long plane ride together and we talked about

life and love and her marriage and our relationship and all of our relationships and everything

she said rang so true and deep. And so one night in bed recently, I thought, Esther

...