We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life's 20 Questions

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination, antigay bias, illness, and death.

“When trauma activates, your sense of self in the world drifts and gets stuck. But pervasive trauma that happens over long periods of time—in the world or in a person’s body—can begin to be perceived as personality traits. Trauma in family systems can look like family traits. Trauma in a people can look like culture. Trauma in a culture can look natural and/or standard. Someone who’s endured trauma might seem ‘crazy.’ They’re not crazy. They’re keeping themselves alive. Untended trauma responses are not defective; they are protective.”

Resmaa Menakem, a therapist who specializes in trauma, illuminates how trauma responses become so deeply embedded that they appear to be innate characteristics rather than adaptive survival mechanisms. Menakem’s insight connects to the authors’ advice to Excavate Your Authentic Self Rather Than Adding More and to Practice Radical Self-Compassion as a Tool for Growth by helping readers understand that behaviors that they may judge harshly in themselves or others often originated as protective responses. Rather than trying to eliminate these patterns through force, recognizing their protective function allows for compassionate healing that honors their original purpose while creating space for new responses.

“The world gives us a menu about sexuality, gender, work, motherhood. There are specific reasons why we have limited options. It’s because the menu doesn’t serve the person ordering; it serves the order of things. Somebody made that menu, and it wasn’t us.”

Glennon Doyle’s metaphor reveals how societal expectations are deliberately constructed to maintain existing power structures rather than support individual authenticity. This insight supports the authors’ guidance to excavate one’s authentic self rather than adding more by encouraging readers to question whether their choices reflect genuine desires or imposed limitations. By recognizing that cultural “menus” are human-made constructs, individuals can begin to create their own options based on internal guidance rather than external expectations.