We Can Do Hard Things

Maybe We CAN Be Loved w/o Being Known: Ashley C. Ford

December 11, 2025

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  • The intense impulse to ensure complete understanding in conversation often stems from an anxious pursuit of connection rooted in a grave fear of being misunderstood or misinterpreted. 
  • The definition of love may need to shift from 'to be loved is to be known' to include elements like being tended to, pursued, or nourished, to alleviate the terror of misunderstanding. 
  • Resentment can arise when one partner's deep work on communication (often trauma-driven) is not matched by the other partner, leading to loneliness because they inhabit different emotional landscapes. 
  • Ashley C. Ford has channeled intense anger into focused energy, understanding her strengths and choosing which fights to engage in, driven by a legacy of perseverance. 
  • Ashley C. Ford found a 'unicorn job' as the Women and Girls Reporter for Free Press Indiana, a role aligning perfectly with her desire to mother, write, and advocate for her community, despite initial hesitation about taking space from others. 
  • The speaker believes that the miracle of grace allows one to receive what they were never given, motivating her to actively mother herself and others, and to force Indiana to claim her history and story through her work. 

Segments

Guest Introduction and Connection
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Ashley C. Ford’s presence offers renewal, wisdom, and a new perspective on loving the world and self.
  • Summary: The host expresses deep trust in Ashley C. Ford, whose recent raw conversation provided necessary renewal during a difficult moment. Ford is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Somebody’s Daughter, and has co-hosted other podcasts. Her dog’s four names amusingly spell out ARFS, highlighting her literary genius.
Partner’s Identity Surprise
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(00:02:22)
  • Key Takeaway: Children require psychological preparation for unexpected relationship dynamics, such as a parent’s partner being a different gender than anticipated.
  • Summary: The host recounts her youngest child’s shock upon meeting Ashley C. Ford’s male partner, Kelly, believing the host (Abby) was a lesbian. This incident highlighted the need to prepare children for different relationship structures. Ashley C. Ford humorously suggests that the host being married to a man is inherently queer.
Mind Spreading Analogy
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(00:09:38)
  • Key Takeaway: Intellectualizing and over-clarifying concepts in conversation can be a form of ‘mind spreading,’ taking up conversational space like physical manspreading.
  • Summary: Ashley C. Ford offered the insight that the host’s need to define every term (like ’love’) in a conversation, while stemming from a desire for clarity, can be annoying to others. This behavior is likened to ‘mind spreading,’ where one’s ideas spill outside their conversational seat, often driven by a fear of being misunderstood.
Anxious Pursuit of Connection
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(00:15:27)
  • Key Takeaway: The impulse to demand complete understanding from others is often the ‘anxious pursuit of connection’ rooted in survival mechanisms against being misinterpreted.
  • Summary: When communication breaks down, the resulting need to ensure total alignment stems from a deep fear of being misunderstood, which triggers non-rational feelings of impending collapse. This anxious questioning differs from genuine curiosity and is often a survival response developed from past experiences of being gaslit or punished for one’s words.
Anger and Hyper Independence
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(00:20:08)
  • Key Takeaway: Misunderstandings can manifest as anger, which is often a defense mechanism against the existential threat of forever loneliness if one’s core self is not seen.
  • Summary: One host experiences anger when a partner’s comment is slightly off-topic, stemming from the fear that if a micro-detail isn’t understood, total isolation will follow. This reaction is linked to childhood gaslighting where the child learned to internalize fault to maintain parental affection. Hyper independence can emerge as a defense mechanism against vulnerability in close relationships.
Partner’s Observational Role
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(00:30:30)
  • Key Takeaway: Trusting a partner’s clear, non-anxious observations, even if they lack the same communication fervor, is crucial for personal growth.
  • Summary: In relationships, partners often play different roles; one partner (the speaker) focuses on communicating what they see, while the other (the seer) observes clearly without feeling the need to articulate everything. Ignoring the seer’s honest observations, especially when they concern one’s own behavior, means discarding valuable insight from the person with the most experience of you.
Loneliness and Solo Work
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(00:52:33)
  • Key Takeaway: Loneliness in relationships often signals necessary solo work in a specific emotional space, rather than a partner’s refusal to join or fix the pain.
  • Summary: The host recognizes that her deep-seated need for clear communication is a survival skill born from trauma, leading to resentment when her partner hasn’t endured the same necessity. She concludes that she cannot force her partner into her specific pain or anxiety; instead, she must accept that some emotional work must be done alone, even when loved.
The Value of Basement Life
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(01:02:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Difficult emotional spaces, or ‘basement life,’ can contain unique treasures and necessary cocooning that cannot be found in lighter, more comfortable states.
  • Summary: The host affirms that descending into difficult emotional states is sometimes a conscious choice, not always a fall. While the climb out can be steep, accepting the necessity of being in that dark space is vital. Some personal transformations, like those of a cocooning insect, require that specific, uncomfortable environment to emerge.
Navigating Macrocosm and Anger
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(01:05:08)
  • Key Takeaway: Emerging from personal darkness into a harsh world can shift internal focus from fear to controlled anger, which can then be directed toward external injustices.
  • Summary: After a period of intense personal struggle, the host found that her fear level did not increase when facing the world’s current atrocities; instead, her anger grew stronger. This anger, which she learned to control during her personal darkness, is now effectively channeled toward perceived evil acts, aligning with a legacy of never stopping the fight until a win is achieved.
Channeling Anger and Legacy
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(01:08:19)
  • Key Takeaway: Ashley C. Ford learned to direct her anger effectively after months of internal struggle, drawing inspiration from her grandmother’s fighting spirit.
  • Summary: The speaker spent several months learning how to manage and direct intense anger, eventually knowing where to point her fighting energy and strengths. She cites her grandmother’s philosophy of never stopping fighting until winning as a legacy and mission she carries. This mindset fuels her belief that as long as she has breath, she has the ability to act.
Pursuing the Unicorn Job
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(01:09:13)
  • Key Takeaway: Ashley C. Ford applied for a Women and Girls Reporter job with Free Press Indiana because it uniquely combined her interests in community focus, local journalism, and steady routine.
  • Summary: After a decade without enjoying employment, Ashley C. Ford saw a posting for the Women and Girls Reporter position with Free Press Indiana and Indy Mirror. She initially hesitated, feeling like a ‘cartoon villain’ for potentially displacing someone with more traditional local press experience. Upon learning that five men had already applied, asserting their maleness as a unique perspective, she immediately submitted her application.
Job Alignment and Personal Mission
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(01:13:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The new reporting role fulfills Ashley C. Ford’s desire to tell the stories of women and girls in Indiana, aligning with her commitment to mothering and community improvement.
  • Summary: The position is described as a ‘unicorn job’ because it involves traveling the state to talk with women and girls about their struggles and successes, and then sharing those stories widely. This work connects to her values of mothering and making the world better where she is, fulfilling a desire she hadn’t felt for a job in over ten years. She views this choice as receiving what she was never given: the privilege of good mothering and a clear path in writing/journalism.
Indiana’s PR and Unfinished Business
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(01:18:45)
  • Key Takeaway: Telling the stories of Midwestern Hoosiers is crucial because Indiana suffers from bad PR and a culture that polices confidence, requiring an insider’s perspective to challenge these narratives.
  • Summary: Indiana has poor public relations, characterized by a culture of ‘faux humble behavior’ that discourages individuals from appearing too confident. The state is conservative and isolated, leading to easy judgment of things people do not interact with, exacerbated by media narratives. Ashley C. Ford returned to Indiana to force the state to claim her history and story, asserting that her deep roots make her uniquely qualified to document the lives of those least often heard.