Focus on what we can control to love our lives boundlessly.
Release fear to feel less alone and find inner strength.
Embrace mortality as a way to cherish and enrich life fully.
Deep dives
Life Reflections and Truth Through Poetry
Andrea Gibson, a celebrated spoken word artist, shares profound life insights during a heartfelt conversation. Their experience with ovarian cancer and the transformative power of poetry are highlighted. Despite facing mortality, Andrea finds joy and purpose through vulnerability, authenticity, and deep self-reflection.
Healing and Love Within Relationships
Andrea reflects on their journey, including their sister's struggle with addiction and recovery, emphasizing the importance of healing personal wounds to cultivate love and kindness. The significance of genuine connections, particularly with their partner Meg, underscores the beauty of shared experiences, gratitude, and unconditional love.
Embracing Life's Simple Joys and Spiritual Growth
Navigating through challenging times, Andrea redefines what makes a good life, emphasizing efforts towards kindness, generosity, and creating a more beautiful world. Their profound connection to spirituality, love, and the divine guides their outlook on mortality, resilience, and the transformative power of embracing each moment with an open heart.
Embracing Mortality and Joy
Embracing mortality is emphasized as a means to cherish life fully, avoiding the notion of eternity as hell. Acknowledging mortality is depicted as enriching life, dispelling the fear of eternity and valuing life's brevity. The significance of embracing all emotions, including joy, is highlighted, with an emphasis on allowing oneself to experience joy without suppressing it, amid societal expectations of despair in activism.
Navigating Illness and Support
The speaker reflects on their journey of confronting cancer, finding empowerment in self-love and acceptance of their condition. The importance of friends' support in researching treatments and providing emotional comfort is underscored. The podcast delves into the transformative power of breathwork, fostering self-compassion, and redefining perspectives on illness and mortality, culminating in a poignant exploration of accepting impermanence and finding peace in life's uncertainties.
In the conversation that’s meant the most to Glennon, Abby, and Amanda – poet and spoken word artist, Andrea Gibson makes the bravest announcement we’ve ever heard. Andrea shares how to boundlessly, relentlessly love our lives by: paying attention to the only thing we can control; letting go of living in fear; and feeling less alone and terrified through it all.
CW: Discussion of suicidal ideation
About Andrea:
Andrea Gibson is one of the most celebrated and influential spoken word artists of our time. Best known for their live performances, Gibson has changed the landscape of what it means to attend a “poetry show”. Gibson’s poems center around LGBTQ issues, spirituality, feminism, mental health and the dismantling of oppressive social systems. Andrea is the author of seven books, most recently “You Better Be Lightning”.
