We can't be our own God

The limits of self-help and self-discovery

A few weeks ago, I told a friend[1] that the most embarrassing thing about my 30s so far is that I’ve become an avid listener of Glennon Doyle’s podcast, We Can Do Hard Things. I first learned of Doyle following the release of her book Untamed, which—if Instagram stories are sufficient evidence—every other young woman in my social circles seemed to have read and adored. But however good for Doyle, the book’s massive popularity meant that I refused to read it thanks to the juvenile sense of contrarianism that I developed as a teenager and am unfortunately still carting around with me as an adult (maybe this is the actual most embarrassing thing about my 30s now that I think about it).

I think my initial resistance towards Doyle and her work was driven by a desire to differentiate myself from the kind of millennial white woman I stereotyped as her target audience – someone still invested in attending each year’s Women’s March, who practiced yoga in a tank top emblazoned with some insipid…