How Andrew Lang Learned to Stop Fixing Everything and Start Living

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Today's guest is Andrew Lang. He is an educator, he's a writer, he's a facilitator, and in this episode, he shares this journey from overwhelming responsibilities and the constant need to fix everything  to discovering the power of gentleness,  self-compassion, and intentional change. He reflects on the pivotal moment that led to this breaking point, which was a late night bike ride that pushed him to his physical and emotional limits, and how that particular experience opened the door to a new way of living. We spent a lot of time, as you can see by the time on this episode, but we spent a lot of time talking about letting go of societal and self-imposed expectations and finding clarity through small, halting steps towards change. You know me, I like to talk about the  checklist of life and he had something very similar to the life that he was living, which was more like a conveyor belt. Andrew's story is a powerful reminder that it's okay to pause, to reassess, and to rewrite the rules that we live by. So if you've ever felt weighed down by perfectionism or this pressure to carry the world on your shoulders, I think this episode will be one that you resonate with. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Andrew Lang. We were never loud arguers.  We were very soft-spoken, let's talk it out, very empathy-first, let's try to...  to the point that our capacity would allow us. Let's try to understand where each other come from. And we're sitting on this couch and all this boiling has all this stuff inside me has just begun to boil.  And I'm not sure I felt it cognitively, but my muscles definitely did. My  back was constantly tense. My shoulders were up. My jaw was just tight.  I was wound tight at this point. And I didn't know, cause I didn't have the tools to know that  I didn't grow up understanding how to read my body. It was just this thing that carried around my brain. And so here we are sitting on the couch and I just exploded and it  wasn't like a  violent towards anything explosion. It was just like a, I stood up really fast.  That was my version of an explosion. I stood up really fast  and I went to the door and I said, I gotta go.  And I just kind of. exploded out the front door and hopped on my bike and I just went.  I tore out of our neighborhood and as fast as I possibly could, the wheels going as fast as I could push my legs going as quickly as I And I was not a bike rider. So this was like  very not pretty, but I was just going, going, going. And I'm pretty sure I just blacked out for most of the ride because my next memory of that was I was in this neighborhood, probably 30 or 40, maybe 50 blocks north  of where I lived.  No, it's pitch black outside. There's no streetlights in the neighborhood that I'm in. I have no idea really where I am.  And my body just gave out and I came to this like stop and I'm just like breathing heavily and looking around  and had this interesting moment. And I  still don't want to attribute it to as like a good moment. I don't want to put good bad on it. It was just this interesting moment where all of this energy had been blown out of me.  And I felt this opening  of  maybe,  maybe I don't have to fix everything. Maybe I don't have to actually come to a resolution on everything. Maybe it's not all mine. I'm Maciel Hoolie and this is the Life Shift.  Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. Hello, my friends. Welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am here with Andrew. Hello, Andrew. Hey, it's good to be here. Well, thank you for being a part of this,  what I call a healing journey of the LifeShift Podcast. It's just something that I never really expected would be a part of my life  and sharing, I guess, all my dirty laundry with the world through these conversations. But  every conversation, weirdly and maybe not so weirdly because we're all humans and connected in that way. But feels like every conversation I have like heals  some unknown part of me that I didn't know needed healing. So thank you for coming on this journey with me. Yeah, that resonates  so much with my story.  So yes, I'm happy to be here.  You're here to tell your story. But before we do that, maybe you can tell us who Andrew is in 2025. Like how do you identify in the world at this moment? So currently, I've been working in education. for a bunch of years now I was a teacher, but now I work on the nonprofit side and I essentially train teachers in project-based learning, which is very hands-on pedagogy or lens through how do we teach kids in a way that's relevant to their lives. And that's a lot of fun work. So I get a lot of my energy from being able to be with teachers  and help like push and prod. And sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's frustrating, but like, how do we do things differently than we've done before? I am a parent of two young kiddos.  I have a partner. We live in Tacoma, Washington. So it's a wonderful little suburb. It's not really a suburb, but it's just south of Seattle, another small, small city.  It's not Seattle. It is outside Seattle. So I'm going to call it a suburb at this point.  We'll see what happens in 10 years. The other really big important part of who I am today that I would, I would share for myself  is I get  so much energy. from  helping folks through conversation figure out what do we do with our overwhelm? Just like, especially as it relates to the political moment we're in,  but broadly speaking, even in the textures and complexities of our personal lives, like what do we do when we are feeling frozen? And how do we find the practices of resilience and presence that'll allow us to take those like little steps out? And I think that probably has lots of threads that are attached to the story all.  share today. But that's, that's a little bit of who I am in 2025. That's a tall order. I'm glad it gives you energy because I don't think it would give a ton of other people energy because that is, it's a lot of absorption, if you will, from other people's energy that's really intense. But also you're working with teachers, which kudos to you kudos to all the teachers and having been in education, I worked in higher ed for 15 years. And  it's a different world than it was 15 years ago. And the way that people view themselves as teachers, the frustrations that come along with current day teaching, there's a lot of things. So kudos to you for finding ways to help teachers navigate it. I mean, I don't know if it's a mess everywhere, but it's a mess some places. And so I'm sure you're helping them with the overwhelm and the actual good  teaching skills. Yeah, you know, it is a mess everywhere. And I think one of the things that I get energy from, but I also absolutely exhausted by, so it really depends on the day is all of us are moving within systems that are not particularly humane. Education is one of those that just feels like it was built for factory model production of factory workers. And we haven't changed it in a ton of fundamental ways. so I love working with teachers because the teachers we've got in this system are  a vast majority of them, beautiful souls, doing something that  is  really difficult and they're just in it. They're in the midst of the muck. And there's something about working with them and being able to go into the muck with them and be like, all right,  one, how do we find our way knowing that we can't change the entire system, but how do we do what's right for the kids right in front of us and how do we push the people who  are theoretically in power in the system to maybe tinker at the edges,  at least until there's enough power to tinker at the core. One of my favorite things about working with teachers is that every teacher is walking into their classroom every day with all these stories from their lives. And so many folks are telling teachers and have told teachers for years that you've got to separate your life from the work you do in the classroom. And I think so, and especially right now you've got, you're being told and depending on what state you're in, teachers are being told to separate even more of their life from what's happening in the classroom. And one of the great privileges I have working in Washington and working with the nonprofit I do is I get to go in and say, your story matters in this space and that you get to share vulnerably with your students, obviously within like not everything, but right. Like your story does matter in this space, just like your student story. matters. And so there's there's a lot of beauty in the midst of that muck as well that I get to.  I'm just really thankful I get to be a part of. Well, keep wearing those rose colored glasses, because I think it's helpful. mean, I think it keeps us in a good space, right? Like, because it's so easy to get distracted.  Maybe have you kind of paint the picture of your life leading up to the pivotal moment that brought you to this version of Andrew, because it sounds like there were probably some trials and tribulations that got you to to this energy that you have now. Yeah. I, so I'll start with education since we're there, but I grew up, think starting in probably fifth grade, I was on a conveyor belt to education, specifically to teaching. And it was a conveyor belt. I totally chose. My parents didn't push me towards teaching. was very little external pressure to go into it, but in fifth grade I had a teacher. I think it's, it's very similar to a lot of teacher stories. You know, I had a teacher that made a huge impact on me.  And from then on, I wanted to be that teacher for other kids. And so I got on this conveyor belt and I went through high school and I went to college and I got my teaching certification and my BA, eventually my master's and I landed in the classroom. found, and I'm  so thankful for this, I found that I was good at it,  which is not always the case  when you are on a conveyor belt for like 15 years.  And so I found that I was good at it and I really enjoyed it. But the first  moment of real friction for me was in my first or second year of teaching, the district I was in  came to our school  and we did project-based learning in our school. And they said, we really like the output that we're seeing. We like the data. And so we would like your small little school, we're in a public school system. We like your  small little school to take your model of project-based learning and merge with this much bigger school. and just take your model and put it on top of theirs. As anyone who's gone through institutional mergers know, it was  disastrous  in the midst of the actual merging. I was still a young teacher  and  at this point  I was  one of the kind of informal co-leads of our high school. So  our school was a six through 12. So I was one of the co-leads of our nine through 12 portion. On top of that, I decided to become our union rep. the same year, which was real fun.  Looking back,  overachieving. So so overachieving. What?  Also, what was I thinking?  You were trying to save people.  And that's what it was. Right. Like it's  it was the saviorist mindset that so much of our pre-education conveyor belt teaches. Also, if not, if not you who? Right. Like I feel like sometimes we feel that way, too. Like I can do this. It's not going to be that overwhelming. Who else is gonna step up and do it? I guess I'll do it. Yeah, and just a little bit more, just a little bit more. I think that's another pieces of my story though, probably will pop up a couple of times is I'm already doing this much, but I can do this a little bit more because it's right here. Why not? And so we had this merger and it was messy and every day as the union rep, I'm battling with the principal  and I'm hearing just awful stories from fellow teachers.  that I'm having to hold in confidence  and figure out ways to how do I take the nugget of this and work with the principal to fix the core problems. So I was just really tense,  I think, that year, those two years were some of the most tense  work years of my life. And you were teaching at the same time, right? Like, so you were teaching, trying to help this merger and our union rep of some sort. Yeah, when I think about it and I go back, Not I was teaching, was  co-leading all of our high school meetings.  I was union rep, so I'm constantly in the principal's office in extra meetings talking stuff through. Between classes,  I was one of the teachers that a lot of kids would come to just for emotional support. Stuff's going on at home, I'm the one people are coming to to share. We only had one counselor for the entire school and just not enough. I'm holding these like deeply emotional, trauma-filled stories.  in these five minute passing periods. About kids, no less. About kids, about kids who have in so  many ways  are  showing such resilience and beauty in the classroom and then knowing that they're going home to just  absolutely devastating conditions  in a texture of different ways. And then I would go after school and have more meetings  on structural issues.  And so you can guess.  My drive home was a really important threshold moment. And that's where there's another layer of this that really, when I think back just, whoa, my partner at the time was another teacher at the school. Teachers bring stuff home no matter what, right? Like  I had gotten pretty good at  letting,  I made everything so that I was able to complete it at school. I very rarely had to grade stuff at home. I was very on top of my time schedule. But emotionally,  of course I would have to bring it home. You can't lay that kind of high trauma stuff down just because you're going home for the day. And so we would drive together after school and just basically trauma dump  and talk the entire drive home, which  over time frayed, right? Frayed that relationship, frayed the  ability to actually connect. And at one point we,  brilliant decision at the time, there was a bridge about halfway from our school to our house. We said, when we get past that bridge, no more school. So we've got about a 10 minute window to like pick the nuggets that we're to talk about safety and clear boundaries.  But I mean, how do you really stop? Exactly. It goes inward. It just goes in. Right. Like it's  and I think that's the that is what I didn't see then that I can see much more clearly now is what I got over that bridge. And sure, nothing was coming out anymore of my mouth, but it was still all percolating. It's all still bouncing around. And you're in your  20s in this period, right? Yeah. Yeah, I was  early, early to mid 20s at this point. OK. And in your family growing up, were you able to emote with the people around you in your family? Or is this something like were you trained in this way of existing with other people with hard stories and how to process that yourself?  this new for you. I would say this is the multiplicity of messages coming from different areas.  From my family, there was always the message of you can be vulnerable. You can always  share what you're feeling.  And  I wasn't modeled that well,  right? So explicitly I was told, but I wasn't particularly modeled it in a ton of ways. And then there are the elements of as a white male,  I talk about sometimes,  I have always felt there's this double-edged sword piece where I've been taught not only to keep it all together,  but that through keeping it together, that's where my strength comes from.  So coming across that bridge  and going home at night, I think ran smack dab into a lack of toolkit. You know, what do I do to metabolize this  beyond just saying it out loud? And so I think I just kind of sat on it and it would simmer.  And different days would be worse, different days would be better, but it was still moving around. So yeah, I think that's a great question because when I was a kid, there were spaces where I could share  out loud, but I wouldn't say those tools were particularly well-developed. Yeah.  And it was probably a product of the time period as well. I think that if we're looking at kids growing up  now,  they're a little bit more in touch with being  more of a full human than maybe I was as a  or a teenager, it felt like I was only allowed to exhibit certain behaviors, certain emotions. If I had those other ones, I was weak or, you know, and so I think times are a little bit different, but I think in your case was probably a time period as well of just, it just, it wasn't modeled not only in your family, but also just like anywhere else. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a great example of that is sure. I was asked how I was feeling by my family. But probably two seconds later, I was told to like rub some dirt on it. Right? Like,  so  so what do do with those conflicting  messages?  You learn  what answer to give. You don't give the real answer, I think. You know, so to your point, you were told one thing model different experience. But I think it's really important because when you're in your  20s, you're also probably feeling really strong, really capable of a lot of things.  Example of all the things you were volunteering. or doing maybe you weren't volunteering, maybe they were paying you extra for all these extra things, but I'm guessing some of them not so much.  And you're taking all these things on and you're like, I can handle it all. Yet, eventually you run out of space.  I would imagine I would. know I did. Well, and that's one of the recurring, I think themes is  that saviorism, right? That I can take a little bit more on,  I can hold a little bit more.  I can stretch just a little bit wider. And I think, so it was in the same timeframe that my partner and I decided to get engaged. And so  here we are No pressure there.  Exactly, exactly. Like,  you know, we're already feeling all this stress, all this stuff happening. Let's layer one more thing on that is massive.  But I think that's common. I think a lot of people think like that one extra thing. is that this good thing is gonna make everything better. It's like  the old tropes of like,  get pregnant, having a kid is gonna make your marriage all perfect, right? So I mean, I think that's probably really common because it's like, oh, well, maybe this good thing is gonna wash away all the other garbage, but. There's also this  fascinating, exactly, and there's also this fascinating distortion, I think, of reality is  when the stress level is so high. the sense of normal, like the sense of what is normal has shifted. Certainly for me,  I think, and even now in my 2025 existence, the stress level is to a point where, okay, this is now normal. But if I take my brain and put it on the other side of the room and look back at what's happening, this certainly is not normal. I am operating at a high level of stress  consistently. And I think that was the same then is that in the midst of all of those shifts  and changes and taking more on myself. I think I saw it as  this is fine. Though you know, the water is boiling, but it still feels fine.  It was it was too much. And the boiling was I think, beginning to happen inside of me, everything that I was pushing in was starting to move to this comes from my own experience. Were you  taking on those extra things because you were searching  for anything? Or like for me, it was always like searching for like the next promotion or whatever these things were for some kind of accolade that would eventually make me feel happy or successful or anything like that. Was that any part of your journey as you were taking these things on, whether it's engagement, whether it's union job? I always,  and it took me years to be able to put these words, so I always wanted to be seen as good enough. Not necessarily seen as good, but like good enough. And I'm not sure,  I'm saying this out loud, I'm not sure that the rubric was  entirely, I'm using teacher language, of course.  I'm not  sure the rubric was entirely external to me. I think I co-created it. And I think I've got a good perfectionist streak in me.  And I think what's interesting about it that I've noticed is that, you know, the rubric, by which I've measured myself is partially from  what I see of the world, what is considered worth anything, what is considered valuable.  But I do have this innate, just, I want to be good enough to be seen as this.  I want to be able to do something to this level. I think that was a big part of it for me is that was searching and trying to,  I was trying to  add the quantity of things  so that people would see me as good enough. not necessarily because I explicitly thought I could save the world, but maybe I... Maybe I could save myself from  being seen as not worth it.  That makes sense.  was there, I guess  the subsequent question to that is  when you did receive an accolade or a  pat on the back, was that like redemption for you or was it like, oh, that's not quite good enough. Like I need a little bit more to  value myself. Definitely it was the accolade was always a confirmation for me of like I'm doing I'm doing good. So keep doing this pile moron Exactly. Exactly. I mean it it was the it was the feeling of oh I got the clappy clap for this So let's just keep doing more. Let's double down right, right Because they're not gonna clap for me again for the same thing that I just did Yeah, and if I now do less that clappy clap goes away, right? And so there's so there's this interesting you have to do more feeling happening within me because I can't do the same and I can't do less, but I need the clappy clap to feel good enough to feel like my life has value. Right. And then you and no status quo status quo doesn't exist.  status quo doesn't exist. I get it. So, yeah, yeah.  It makes total sense. No, but you were adding you. So you were just compiling as much as you could stuff into your life, whether that's through emotion, stress, job, all these things. Exactly. Exactly. And in the midst of this,  the conveyor belt, I had been on a conveyor belt towards teaching and here I was, was a good teacher, I knew I was a good teacher, there's all this stuff happening. And the cracks began to show up around, is this actually what I want to do?  Which not helpful. really doing it full time. I mean, you were, but you were doing so many other things. Exactly. I'm now the image that pops in my head is I think it's the first Incredibles. where the dad is lifting train cars or something, I very much was in the experience of holding, maybe it's one of the Spider-Man movies too, where you're holding and just being trying to hold everything and getting completely stretched and everything in your body is saying just drop, drop stuff. Yeah. You're like, this isn't the vision of being a teacher that I always had. because you're not even getting the chance to enjoy it fully really because you have all the stresses of all the other things you've taken on. It makes sense. Exactly. Exactly. It didn't feel like  the moments that felt like teaching always felt good to me. The moments in the classroom, the moments in between classes, being able to talk to students, those  always felt good to me. It was  the entire context around it in which it was happening that no longer, it started to no longer feel like it fit. Not only would I go home and feel all this stress and there was relational stress and all of this was happening, but I started feeling interiorly those questions of, this actually what I want to do? What is lighting me up? What is feeling good? And I started getting like these other, I kind of refer to them as threads sometimes, but like I would start pulling on this other thread that was completely outside of the education world and realizing, there's there's actually more energy there than I have for my own teaching. And is that just because there's no stress there? Or is it because there's something there's something there that's calling to something in me? That's very evolved of you to like, I mean, I feel like, were you still in your 20s here? Were you? Yeah, I must have been 25. I think I was right in my 252627 years. I mean, that's very evolved of you, I would say, from my own experience at 25. I like I wasn't thinking those things. Well, you know, and this is another part of my story is I grew up always surrounded by lots of adults.  My family, just the way our family dynamic was, there was always  older people around. And so part of that striving for being good enough was also I wouldn't say it was a showmanship, but it was a part of it was I need to be able to navigate publicly in this space where there's a bunch of adults. And so how do I act like an adult young? I did a group for a little while. This was probably mid 20 actually, this is probably right around the same timeframe.  And we talked about tower building was our imagery.  And, you know, your first part of life, you're building your little tower. And then at some point you realize the tower you built no longer really fit your story. And so you start taking that tower apart, looking at the blocks. And I think  I very much  connect with that  as when I was young and I was navigating these spaces with adults, part of me building that tower was.  I have to act like an adult. I have to learn how to navigate well. I have to be seen as good enough. And it left me with my moment of driving across the bridge and feeling these internal questions popping up was basically me looking at those blocks going, what the hell is this tower?  didn't,  I didn't mean to build. Yeah. Who put these here? This can't have been all me. And it turns out that a lot of them  were, they were just different parts of me, different versions of me, different ages of me, different desires  from me. So yeah. Yeah. Well, in this period where you're kind of stacking things and getting overwhelmed or thinking like, is this really for me? Was there any resentment that came into that play? Like, did you resent some of your decisions and things? Did you did you internalize any of that? think,  speaking from my own experience, I think I would have done all those things. So curious if that was  coming into play. Like, why did I do this to myself? I took this conveyor belt. Get out. kind of not sure I ever had resentment as much  as  maybe this maybe it's just a different flavor of resentment. I experienced a lot of frustration around why was this breaking down? Why did everything feel like it was breaking down? So it wasn't necessarily resentment around like, who put these damn blocks here?  Well, how did this happen? But it very much was a frustration of why can't these blocks be okay? Why can't everything just be fine. And that came,  I can even saying it out loud right now, I'm hearing the words fix it, right? It had a lot of fix it energy. Can I just fix all of these things as quickly as possible? So, and what did that lead to? Doubling down even further in union work, doubling down even further in relational work, which in my experience in that moment, looking back, trying to fix the issues was probably not the right call was certainly not the right call. But it was the tool I had to deal with all of these things seemed off. So how can I figure it figure it out like a puzzle as quickly as I as could? mean, that makes sense too, because as an educator, also, you know, like, I think going through school, you kind of know that there's this direction that you're supposed to go, I can I can make this mess into something that makes sense, especially project based learning. It's like, here's a big mess. Here's the outcome. don't know. It's not a predetermined outcome, but we can figure out a way that will make it feel good.  So,  I mean, but do you hit a wall? Like, I mean, I would imagine if you're stacking, if you're doubling up on everything else, that you're already busy enough,  you're going home, bringing  all of that with you. So as your partner, you must hit a wall. Do you? Are you superhuman?  Absolutely not. I think we've reached the pivotal moment.   I, so there was a, there was one particular moment, my partner and I were sitting on the couch  and we were never loud, arguers.  were very soft spoken. Let's talk it out. Very empathy first. Let's try to, to, to the point that our capacity would allow us. Let's try to understand where each other come from. And we're sitting on this couch and all this boiling has all this stuff inside me has just begun to boil.  And I'm not sure I felt it cognitively. but my muscles definitely did. My back was constantly tense, my shoulders were up, my jaw was just tight.  I was wound tight at this point and I didn't know, because I didn't have the tools to know that.  I didn't grow up understanding how to read my body. It was just this thing that carried around my brain. And so here we are sitting on the couch and I just exploded. And it wasn't like  a... violent towards anything explosion. was just like a, I stood up really fast.  That was my version of an explosion. I stood up really fast  and I went to the door and I said, I gotta go.  And I just kind of exploded out the front door and I hopped on my bike and I just went and I tore out of our neighborhood and as fast as I possibly could, the wheels going as fast as I can push my legs going as quickly as I could. And I was not a bike rider. So this was like  very not pretty. but I was just going, going, And I'm pretty sure I just blacked out for most of the ride because my next memory of that was I was in this neighborhood, probably 30 or 40, maybe 50 blocks north  of where I lived.  No, it's pitch black outside. There's no streetlights in the neighborhood that I'm in. I have no idea really where I am.  And my body just gave out. And I came to this like stop. and I'm just like breathing heavily and looking around  and had this interesting moment. And I still don't want to attribute it to as like a good moment. I don't want to put good bad on it. It was just this interesting moment where  all of this energy had been blown out of me.  And I felt this opening  of  maybe,  maybe I don't have to fix everything. Maybe I don't have to actually come to a resolution on everything. Maybe it's not all mine. Maybe I don't have to  like pretend to have it all together. And I just remember straddling the bike,  random neighborhood, breathing, and having these thoughts come through my brain for the very first time. were totally novel. Hadn't  ever.  You know, I'd heard the words before, but I had never felt the words as connected to my story before. And so for the first time, it's like I had. I didn't just there was meat for the bones,  there was actually connective tissue of my story, and so. I'm not even sure what happened next. I think I went back.  I mean, I definitely went back some point.  But I mean, it sounds like you just like you literally your emotions and all the energy inside of you exploded out. And you found a way to burn it off. And then you get to the space where there's I mean, this is  super cheesy, but like you're just empty. Like you feel like you got there. And now you have the space to think about the things that you you were too full to even think about any of those solutions that were maybe  healthier  for you than  just trying to fix everything. You know what I wish?  I'm always careful with what I say. I wish I had done differently, but I wish I had known how to cry. I think if I had known how to cry before that moment, that energy would have had a space to go. Not all of it, but I would have had one more tool to work with. But I think that was what I had. I just had, okay, I can hop on this bike and push. And in some ways, I think I'm lucky that I pushed that I didn't stop myself, that I pushed to the point of my body stopping me, that my brain that I should say that again, that my brain didn't stop the fullness of me, my body did, because that I think opened me to a new experience of, okay, this is something new. This is something novel. I can I can work with this. I can go back with a new mindset. You're in a different part of town feeling like a different person at that moment, possibly, or like the start of a different type of person. Would you say that's true?  Yeah, certainly with new questions.  Maybe maybe the same. Did it feel possible, though? Like at one point before it was it wasn't possible for you to just not fix things to get better. But now, like there was this possibility that like maybe you don't have to maybe you don't have to stay on the conveyor belt. Maybe you. don't have to do what you think everyone expects you to do. Totally. And it's not that I knew how to do any of that, right? Like, I think I didn't have any next steps  connected to this moment.  But you didn't have any next steps connected to the old moments either, right? No. And I think that's the reality, right? It's like the old moment. The best thing I could keep doing was keep trying to fix stuff. That was my my only operating mode. And so in this moment, all of a sudden the fixing stuff was in question, if not just like not gonna happen or the realization that it wasn't gonna work. I think my next step was just to take my next step and like turn the bike around, right? I remember in the immediate aftermath of that moment, like the next couple of days, the next couple of weeks, it's not that anything like fundamentally foundationally changed. I was still carrying way too many plates. in the air or balls in the air, whatever that saying is.  And  can carry whatever you want. Yeah, I was carrying stuff and it was in the air.  But I do know that that's when things began to be OK with me. My partner at the time had talked about moving back to the East Coast and the idea  of her going back to the East Coast and us ending the relationship was all of a sudden, OK, that seems like a  like valid option, where it wasn't an option before I had to fix it.  And,  you know, all this stuff that was happening at the school, all the union stuff, it's not that the individual things I was dealing with each day was okay. But there was an okayness of, okay, this is the reality we're in. I can't save all of this, but I will keep listening. And I will keep doing what I can do. But I'm  okay. Yeah. Sounds like you weren't carrying the world anymore. You were just carrying the plates. That's a I think that's a great way to say it. Yeah,  it was. It was a letting down  in a good way  of a bunch of stuff that I had taken as essential. I had taken as things that were part of me that I then realized just weren't. They were just stuff I'd picked up. Yeah, and I think we  like someone that is empathetic. You pull on this responsibility. aspect of a lot of things like it's your job to make sure everyone else is okay and everything else is fine. Maybe that's the fix it piece but also there's the emotional attachment to it of like, you need to do all you can to make sure that this kid is okay and that this kid is okay. When really that's not your full responsibility. I mean, guess as a good human, it's helpful, but to let yourself be your own human is also helpful because you can't really show up for other people if you're not really showing up for yourself, which is really cheesy, but totally true. I'm sure you saw that. I had never understood the idea of taking care of yourself before others  was  not a computable thought in my mind. know, sure, on an airplane, that made sense. But in the day to day, it just didn't to me.  But but in the aftermath, you know, started going to therapy, started really reconnecting. in therapy? That was my, yeah, that was my first time in therapy.  and you know  what, what's kind of humorous about it is I wouldn't say the therapist was great.  I wouldn't say the therapy experience was great, but the act of going was  absolutely essential for me.  putting myself in a space where I could say  say things out loud and just once a week I have a place to speak and I don't have to  I remember the experience so much of my house was walking around on eggshells tiptoeing and Having a space where I could go where I didn't have to do that and I could just say things and the therapist would reflect them back to me and I could hear them was was really Powerful and essential and I think gave me a space gave me my first glimmers  as well as reconnecting with some old friends When I let a bunch of stuff down I could see the world a little bit more clearly I could see you know, I haven't connected with this friend in a while. I should go do that  I started picking up a racquetball once a week which Man, if you have a lot of pent-up aggression and stress going into an enclosed space with a bouncy ball and a racket  is and another person  and another person, one of the most dangerous  and humorously wonderful experiences.  Yeah, it's important. think  it sounds like you started to  free yourself from some of those responsibilities in in  the overwhelming sense of those responsibilities. Maybe you didn't actually quit those particular things, but you didn't put as much pressure on yourself to to be good enough. Maybe was this was this a venture into not having to be good enough? Totally. And I think the  word that I, the phrase that's coming to mind, I have a good friend who talks about  how do we take our next halting step?  And  that is what it felt like for me around. I don't have to  jump anymore to fix everything. All I have to do is figure out the next halting step and it gets to be halting. It gets to be a tip toe. It gets to be a, you know, a little tiny one and That really opened me up to, I get to explore  what my life would be like if I left teaching this year.  Or my life, you know, what would happen if I moved cities?  And it's okay because it's not irreversible. Well, before it might have been scarier. It was terrifying before. was,  yeah.  I have a lot of gratitude for that version of me because  there was...  I have lot of gratitude for the version of me before the pivotal moment and a lot of gratitude for the version of me right after because the version of me right after was for the first time noticing just how overwhelmed I was,  just how much was going on and beginning to find ways to say, I can move in a different way. My body can move in a different way. And I was giving myself permission to do that. And I'm just eternally thankful that some part of my story in that moment was okay with shifting gears  and that my community  saw that that was happening and affirmed me.  Yeah, that's big.  you have an experience in which the older or the previous version of you, the fix,  fill every moment with everything person that you finally got to say no to things that maybe the earlier version would have agreed to do or help out with? Was that a big thing for you? I know for me,  saying no was really hard for a long time. Saying no. Yeah, I mean, yes.  Say I, I think my  no, actually. No, I think the biggest no that I gave is I stopped teaching.  I left teaching at the end of the year. So within a year of this moment. Yeah.  And it was  it was both  a  random decision.  And an entirely unrandom decision, right? Everything that had been percolating, everything that had been curious within me about what else might I do, I decided, you know what? I'm just gonna not teach next year. And I'm going to do anything else  that will bring enough money in to be able to help me survive for  a year. That's one of the benefits of being in the mid-20s  age range for me was, you know, I had no kids, I had no real responsibilities other than... maintain survival.  And I think that was an act of me saying no to the conveyor belt and no to  union repping and no to some of those things that I'd picked up. I like, no, I can, I'm just going to set all of this down and I'm going to take a year away to figure out what does my body feel like in a totally different context. And then I'll decide my next halting step from there. And I'll just keep doing that for a little bit.  makes sense to me. I think. this is just like outing myself in this decision making pattern that I like to get into is I find that quitting everything is much easier than quitting one thing. I don't know if maybe in that version of you thought the same thing, but like for me, it would be easier to sell my house and move to another state than it would be to like drop a certain part of a job, which sounds  so stupid saying it out loud, but that's just how my brain worked for so long because It felt like if I could let everything down instead of one person or one thing,  it made everything a lot easier. Give me an excuse, I guess. Totally.  Here's the funniest part to me looking back.  So  I'm in the midst.  I've decided to quit teaching  my relationship. We decided to part ways. So she was going to go back to the East Coast. I was staying here in the Tacoma, Seattle, Pacific Northwest area.  And I saw  moving. as the final, like, I'm just gonna quit everything. I'm gonna quit my job. This relationship has ended. I am going to move to a city I've never been to. And so I just  bounced  up to a little town called Redmond. It's where Microsoft really has its like big headquarters near Bellevue.  Weirdest town I have ever lived in.  Unbelievable wealth  to  the extent that I've never seen before.  fancy cars everywhere. And I was living for one year in this communal house with five people. There was an abundance of pot smoke that would just go through the house at any hour of the day. And I would just be saying, they're going, Oh, well, all right. And I did that for about a year. And here's the humorous part for me is when I had been in Tacoma, I had become really good friends with my landlord. and in the house that my partner and I had lived in. And so after that year in Redmond, I decided I really missed Tacoma.  know, stopping teaching was a good move. Moving here was a good move. Ending that relationship, good move. But now it's time for me to go back to Tacoma, because that's where I can actually see this new version of me that's  coming alive. And I called up my landlord because the person who had moved into that house wasn't working out. And so we decided that I would move back into that house But I knew  something that was really important for me is that that house needed to shift. There needed to be some sort of different. And so I went down for about three months before I moved in and we completely demolished their kitchen,  redid the floor, redid all the cabinetry, redid the bathroom, all the stuff that they'd been putting off for years.  And the idea of me coming back and this kind of moment just perfectly came together. And so I got to step foot in this house that I had absolutely fallen in love with. And because of a little bit of my sweat going into  redoing the insides and it being visually different, felt  very much like this  Andrew 2.0, right? this, this-  Different timeline. Different timeline. I'm going to reenter this space that is so familiar and yet different. And I love, I love that that has- become part of my story also. Because I think that was a really beautiful moment of I left  a relationship with landlords that I really loved and I was welcomed back and said, hey, what do you need in order to be here and feel like the you that you're becoming? And let's do that. Yeah. No, it's really special. It feels like a reset or like a healthy reset. You needed to escape the things that were drowning you essentially. And the only way to do it was to go to something super unfamiliar, which I very much. I ran to the mountains near Aspen for a year to just get away from life, right? And,  and live a different type of life. I came back. I resonate with so much of your stories because like, sometimes you can't get out of the things your day to day things unless you like totally escape them. Like you can't do those things because you're somewhere else. And like that kind of you kind of did the same thing. When you came back, did you feel like you were taking pieces of the tower that you liked? and like building that tower again? Or do you feel like you were building something brand new? There were elements, there were certainly pieces of the tower that were the same. Parts of the tower that I enjoyed, blocks that made sense for me still, but so much of it was new. And a lot of it came down to rhythms and routines for me. I would walk every morning. I would get my cup of coffee and just go for a stroll through the neighborhood. And it was an act of seeing the neighborhood in a new way. I would, I didn't pick up racquetball, but I would start biking more, right? Like there were all these different pieces that coming back, I would say like lent a container. It was a new container. It felt like I was building a new container. And for the first time, I was the one choosing the elements of the container, not a conveyor belt, not different things that just, you know, come with choosing this life. I did come back to teaching because that felt good for me. And I did that for a couple more years before I transitioned to the job I'm in now. Did you do it in a different way? Partially,  partially chosen, partially not. When I came back to teaching, I definitely did not go back into union reps  work. That was a part of me that I was like, maybe someday, but right now I'm tipped. I'm small steps. And so I came back to teaching and That first year, I remember doing something I've never done before professionally. I kept my head down. I just kind of did the job. And by the end of the year, I was ready for, know, I, this is kind of my, also my operating mode, but you know, by the end of one year of, sitting and listening and seeing the world, I'm always ready to, you know, what can we do? What can we do differently? But there was the ability to go back to teaching and doing it in a different way was really. really positive and being able to choose it.  So much of this comes down to like an expansion of my  self permission to have choicefulness that I can do this  and  make my own take, you know, make my own decisions and I, and that they're not permanent. Right. And you had with by putting your head down, doing a good job at work, but doing the job, it probably gives you more space to say yes to things  in your personal life in your life where you can find other joys that whereas before the previous version of you was stuffing your life full of so many responsibilities that it was probably hard to find things that were like super enjoyable that you could attach yourself to.  100%. This was the time period where I really began a lot of what I do now. I began, I would teach during the day and then at night I was hosting these small group get togethers  and we would just post some questions around like, essentially questions of what did you want to be when you grew up, when you were young that didn't turn out the way you wanted it to? And how are you dealing with that? And we would just sit together and talk about that, which  now that I say it out loud, it was storytelling. It was 100 % storytelling. And connection. mean,  you had your story, you had your version of that story. You probably wouldn't have been able to have that conversation had you not gone on that bike ride. of  an  empty to every resource that you had inside your body to get to the point that you are now. So I mean, the point of connection really. Yeah, there was an accessibility that all of sudden I could find for myself that I had access to being able to sit with folks  and  really, really connect both with the stories, but also with just like the deep overwhelm feelings of anger and frustration and sadness and to share that space together so that we can feel seen. And I think that was that was really beautiful for me. Starting with that first group, I think we had, I don't know, nine or 10 folks. And ever since then, that's kind of I've made sure that there is some version of that in an ongoing way for the past many for the past several years now. It all goes back to something you said earlier of like this giving yourself permission.  Now these groups that you're doing and helping people in this way, you're giving them permission to like admit that everything is not all sunshine and rainbows, like that we sometimes feel like we have to project out into the world that like, oh yeah, life is great.  Once I pass this bridge where everything's perfect, right? Like I think there's a beautiful piece of permission that one you gave yourself because you. kind of opened your life up in a way where you can kind of create your own life instead of whatever you thought you were supposed to do on this conveyor belt of  life. Do you feel that? Do you feel that life is more full now, even if you're doing less than you were doing before? It very much feels like shifting out of autopilot. That's the best like  phrase or word that I've come up with to flesh out the feeling of it feels like I'm all of sudden able to and not all of a sudden. I'm over  quite a long process actually,  but  able to  see more options on the table  and pick the  options that feel right for me in the moment. One of the ways that that definitely  is showing up right now for me is in the midst of our political context  and in the midst of the world, the overwhelming feeling of like, what can I do?  And the overwhelming feeling of is watching another Netflix episode the thing right now?  Is doing that. It's really showing up for me to be able to  have a person that I really appreciate. But they talk about oscillating. and oscillating between action and rest and community and taking your own space. All of a sudden, all of those four different movements are available for me. And so I can watch that one more episode of Netflix. And that doesn't negate my responsibility to myself and my community to do something tomorrow or to do something later tonight and to take action. But all of a sudden, there's just more on the table, more choices to make. And I think that's one of my realizations around that feeling of overwhelm. is for me and my story, the way out has always been taking a small step in a direction and then feeling for is this directionally aligned with the person I feel like I'm actually becoming. Yeah. Do you think back on that moment of like extreme overwhelm when you kind of hit that part, do you think that had to happen? And I asked this because,  right?  And this is not to negate anything that you're doing, but it's almost like we need to sometimes explode to realize that things are too much. And so I think of like myself and deep in my grief process, like I needed to get so bad that I needed to find a therapist and find the way through. I think if I had tried it 10 years prior, I don't know that I would be where I am with the whole journey. it's like, such the shittiest moment of your life at the same time, it's like you almost had to be there. And maybe I'm putting words in your mouth, but do you feel that? No, yeah, I think either I had to, you know, the word that comes to my mind right now is either I had to explode or the world had to explode. And the thing about the world is that it usually explodes in slow motion. And so it's hard to find your footing and notice that it's exploding. Like in 2025, is that what you're saying? You know, in fact, in fact that is. But but in that moment for me, it was definitely I had to explode. There was something that had to give. And because I didn't have the tools to recognize what was moving in slow motion within me, it all had to break down as a hey, now you have to look at it. Now you have to realize and and not just look at it. You have to feel it. You have to feel that this tower is crumbling. Yeah. What's the biggest difference between Andrew 1.0 and Andrew 2.0? Or maybe you're on 3.0, I don't know. Whatever version I'm in now. I think a sense of gentleness. That feels right. Yeah, that feels right. For myself? For myself. And for myself and for the world. To both internal and external, there's a gentleness that I... I'll give an example. Before that moment,  everything was harsh,  harsh internal narratives,  harsh desire to fix the world and find the outcome and cling, just clench to the outcome until we're there.  And I'm a lot more gentle internally, a lot more language internally that is okay with myself and self-talk is a lot healthier. And even externally, seeing the world and seeing so many different things that feel like absolutely on fire and specifically in my own communities  noticing and seeing things very clearly that this is on fire and this is a problem. There is a urgency that is there. Certainly there is a commitment to change. Certainly, but there's a gentleness in, I don't know what the outcome is  and I don't know.  that my version of change will actually get us to the change that is necessary. But I do know that if I hold all of that gently, and if I hold myself gently, I can take steps. I can do what is right in front of me  and we'll figure out the outcome together. So I think  that's been one of the biggest transitions for me is just how gentleness in my posture has  changed.  I mean, I think that the gentle piece, especially for yourself, is probably like such a  relief in some way. I know it's been a longer journey. It's not like it's overnight kind of thing. But I'm sure that feels better just sitting in your body. I'm sure you've also played this activity in which you kind of look back at the previous version of them of yourself. If you could go back to Andrew sitting on that couch, feeling like you're about to stand up really quickly and run out that door. Is there anything that that you would want to tell him or do with him or.  I  one is I would say you probably need to stand up and go out that door.  You probably need to go for a bike ride.  But I think the other thing that I would tell that version of me is it's okay if this doesn't work. And I would say in all the different aspects  of what my life was looking like right then, it's okay if it doesn't work. Experiment, try something else and that's okay. Yeah, it's really hard to understand that in those moments though.  conditioned to know that there was a definitive way that you needed  to operate. It's really hard to understand that. I think that's what's hard for me, even in saying that now is the version of me that was on that couch would not have understood that, would not have heard it. Maybe would have heard it if I had gone to that  version of me on the bike in the random neighborhood in the pitch black. If I had said those words there,  that may have gotten through the defense systems that I had built. But you were depleted at that point. mean, you were ready for anything. Like someone give me a sign that everything's going to be okay.  I think it's very common. think if we look back at these versions of ourselves before these life shift moments, these pivotal things that these line in the sand, I don't know, whatever we want to call it.  So many people would say, it's going to be okay. And none of us  would believe it, because everything is so hard in that very moment.  When my dad told me my mom was dead, she was my whole world. I lived with my mom. I didn't see my dad very often. My life was not going to be okay in that moment. Here I am decades later and I'm okay.  It's just really hard to  absorb something like that. I guess that's why we're human and that's why we're on this resilient journey that we're on.  Thank you for sharing your story in this way. I hope that it came out the way that you wanted it to. It felt really good to say all that. There are new, there are little elements of what I just shared that I have not  spoken out loud before, and also parts of it that I haven't even thought.  So  once again, it just goes back to that power of storytelling. New stuff shows up every time because there's a new version of us that's saying it. Keep telling your story, right? If people want to like get in your orbit, learn more about you,  what you do, what you offer to the world, like what's the best way to find you in your stuff? Yeah, best way,  my website is andrewgleng.com  and I send out this newsletter that is, has also been just like a life changing experience for me. But I sent out a newsletter every week with frameworks and practices for leaning into this gentleness while still making change in the world. And I think that's, that's been really powerful for me. Yeah. And you're,  that is not the only way you're writing for the world, right? No, so I'm writing the newsletter every week. I write on Instagram. I've written a book that I published a couple years ago, and this will be the first place I publicly announce it, but I'm currently working on my second.  So that'll come out someday.  And if you are wanting  to read another book  in like a couple years, you can hop on the newsletter and you'll find out that way. Yeah, but if they get in your circle and they want to learn more about you, then they'll just know naturally as that comes along. I think  I encourage people. to reach out to my guests if something that you said today, and maybe it's not the main part of your story, maybe it's just some offshoot sentence that you said really resonates with them, would you welcome people reaching out to you in that way? I think I would welcome that more than anything else.  One of the things I really appreciate about your podcast more than and differently than any other podcast I've listened to is just the sheer vulnerability of being able to speak a story and say, and I guess I'm saying this now, but like  100%, if there's something about this resonates, would love to hear it because this has felt more like a conversation and just a really wonder, I'm very appreciative. Yeah. Well,  I appreciate that. I  super  encourage anyone listening to reach out or maybe there's someone in your life that like, maybe you're fine, but you know that someone, your neighbor or your friend or your partner or whoever might need to hear this conversation because it might in a resonant and different way. We  would love it if you share that. It's  the power of podcasting is beautiful because there might be people five years from now, right? Like in the future that are listening to this conversation and something clicks. I hope that happens. I hope someone out there feels less alone by hearing your story.  Maybe jumps off that conveyor belt and maybe a more gentle way, right? And  find their way into whatever their 2.0 or 3.0 looks like. So thank you for coming on this journey. Thank you so much. This was wonderful. Thank you for that. Thank you, Andrew, for being a part of this. Thank you all for listening. And I will be back next week with a brand new episode. For more information, please visit  www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com