Swell AI Transcript: Episode 8.mp3

00:00 SPEAKER_00 Hello and welcome back to another episode of the More Than Mom podcast. I am your host, Samantha Cooke, and guys, I am super pumped to bring this episode to you because I know it is one that is heavily talked about on social media. It's something that you definitely are going to want to listen to, hopefully share with people around you or anyone you know that's struggling, but to make adult friendships. And now I know that sounds really weird, but as a mom, one of my roles that I really don't do well is being a friend. And not because I'm a bad person, just because I struggle to make friends with adults, because I have a lot of priorities and things like that in my life. Making time for friendships right now, especially while my kids are four and almost two, it's just kind of hard to spend extended time with a person that may also have small children and actually get to knowing them in a capacity where it's conducive to becoming friends and spending that alone time. Just like when you started dating your spouse, it was like you spent one-on-one time together, you talked, you got to know each other without the disruptions of the rest of the world going on. And so as we are navigating friendships as adults, for me, I moved to a completely different state hours and hours away from my family, from a life I had known. It's hard to make new friends. And then we lived here for about a year, I guess it was about a year and three months when COVID hit. So please tell me how in the world we were supposed to make friends during COVID. You didn't. That's what you did. And so I think a lot of us settled into this fact of like, hey, you know, I don't have a village and I'm doing this on my own. And for a while, like that was okay. It was okay for me to be kind of by myself raising my daughter who had just turned one right after all this started. And then I got to this place where I was kind of lonely and I'm like, hey, I'm looking for people who have kids about the same age that have interests that I do. And I felt a little like isolated. I would hate to say that word, but that's kind of how I felt. And so for me, as navigating a role as a friend was one, you got to be a friend. So just for anyone out there, if you wonder why you don't have friends, being a friend to people who are not necessarily your friends yet is also a huge factor in that way. But as we started to reintegrate ourselves back into society and start doing things again, I noticed that it became a lot easier for one, we would talk and we would be like, yeah, we need to go hang out. And then when it came down to actually hanging out, nobody wanted to do things. If you've seen all the memes across the internet, it's like, don't ask me to do something after eight o'clock. I'm not going. I'm always looking for a way out. And so I think this has really burdened us as a society is that, no, I don't necessarily have the energy to go and do all the things right now. But if somebody really needed me to go and do something with them, I would try to figure it out. The more time that we spend alone, the more time we're just hunkered down to ourselves. We're not equally yoking ourselves in friendships that support us that one, call us out when we need to be called out for that accountability factor alone is when we're not being the most excellent version of ourselves. But two is also just somebody that understands what you're going through that you can be like, yeah, today was rough. And my kid cried all day and I don't know what I did wrong, but I tried my best. And that can be there and say, hey, like, yeah, today was a bad day. And then tomorrow is not going to be that bad day. And so for me is like really, you know, navigating those friendships. A lot of my best friendships are people that don't live close to me because one, I'm not going to have to like go and find time to do things with. I can just text them or talk to them on the phone, those types of things, but just really trying to get involved in my community too. And so I know there's lots of things like MOPs groups and stuff like that, that I've tried to reach out and start planting some seeds of some friendships, just finding people that have similar views. And I'm not saying that people have to have the same views as you. I'm just saying that you've got to find the people you mesh with and you can do life with because it does get lonely. It's not, we're not meant to be that way. God created us for community. So that's something we definitely need to continue to pursue. Even when it's hard, I get it guys. I've been in the trenches. I'm finally getting out of the trenches of being up all night. Heck, my son still woke up at 5 a.m. to just get in bed with me and go back to sleep. So I get being tired. I'm a working mom myself, entrepreneur and a podcast host. So I get like not having the energy at the end of the day to go and do these things, but they're vital. They are vital to who we are as a person with mental health issues being at an all time high. A lot of it is just because we don't have a community. And we see more instances of moms having issues with being a mom and that postpartum being even more traumatic than it should be. And our generations behind us may not understand those things nearly to the same extent. And I'm not saying it's because they're wrong. I'm not saying it's because they had community. I'm not saying it's because they had it all together and figured out. I just think we prioritize social media. Well, I've got three thousand friends on social media, but not a single one of those people has shown up at your doorstep when you just had a child to bring you dinner and things like that. Those are the moments where we need somebody to come over and fold our laundry and come over and make us dinner when we're going through rough patches in life and honestly just dealing with rough patches in general, because when people don't have that sense of community, they don't reach out and say, hey, is everything okay? Hey, are you doing all right? You're just not acting like yourself. And so the assumption is that you're mad, that you're angry, that you are not enjoying those people when really maybe you just have something going on in order to reduce those amount of assumptions, those amount of aggressions, because I know a lot of people that can get media and just like dump and aggress all over people. But if they had to actually talk to those people in person, they probably couldn't. With that is like we've got to step back and say, hey, like who's the people around us? Who are the people we know we love that we actually can sit there and make some time for? I'm not saying it has to be a big time commitment, but man, going out to coffee once a month, having a play date once a month, things like that makes such a world of difference. I know the ladies I hung out with the most often, even a year or so ago, that even if our kids just played together and we just got to talk and be adults, it was so nice and it was really good for my mental health. I spend a lot of time being on Zoom calls and things like that, just getting myself around women who have this greater motivation in life, whether they're employees or they are entrepreneurs or whatever. They just have very similar views as I do. I spend a lot of time talking to them on Zoom calls because they live all over the country and I love them to death, but that doesn't help me in my day to day of finding the people that I can resonate with, that I can spend time with, that I can pray with, all those things here where I am. And I'm grateful. Oh, I am so grateful for the time that I actually get to spend with those ladies in person because it's very few and far in between and I'm just so grateful for that. But we really have to get back to creating that community within where we are because it's so vital to one. When you're around people who want more for themselves, you tend to want more for yourself. It just grows that level of excellency in who you are because you have other people who are motivating, creates accountability, gives you some ownership of who you are as well. I'm not saying that that's the end all be all, but that is a huge factor. So if you're listening to this today, I just really hope that you pray about the people you come into contact with and pray, you know, God, I need the friends, I need the community, I need people who will pray with me, who will help me be better versions of myself. You know, whether that is rebuking you and say, hey, this is where you're falling short, not because they're perfect, but because they love you. And to have truly some friends that will sit there and say, hey, I know you're struggling and I know that it's really hard right now, but you've really got to pick yourself up and I'm here for you and I'm here to be your accountability and I'm here to do that with you is that like, hey, you're going through this, but I'm going to help you and I'm going to walk through this with you so you can be the best version of yourself. You can be the sister in Christ that I know. There is so much in just that alone, one that's good for your mental health. It's good for your sense of community, grows who you are as a person and as a Christian and allows your children to see like, hey, we do need to be able to depend on people. We do need to be able to go to people. And one, if it's like if we've wronged them, ask for forgiveness, you know, be rebuked, also rebuked those around us. I say rebuke in such a loving way because obviously those people just want what's best for us and want us to grow in who we are and for our children to see us do those things day in and day out with other adults and make good friendships, that's going to help them have a much better view and outlook of friendships and whoever else that they want to be around. It's like, oh, these are the types of friends I need to have because these are the types of friends that care about me. These are the types of friends that want to see me go and succeed. Even if they're your best friend, doesn't isn't necessarily like, hey, I don't want to really be an entrepreneur, but I really want to be a good person. I really want to produce good fruit and who I am and love on people. They can still support you in that. And so just finding those people who love and support you in the ways that God has called us to love and support each other is so, so vital. So if you get nothing else out of today is start trying to build your community around you, whether it's baking your neighbor some cookies or something like that. It's like just like deep dive in to finding your community, finding people. There's tons of Facebook groups go look like locally, you know, places around you. I'm planning on homeschooling my children. And so I've gotten connected in several homeschool groups that are near me and things like that. So I can get connected with those parents who obviously have similar views of schooling that I do. Not saying that's the end all be all because then I also know that like the children that are in my daughter's church classroom and finding those parents because obviously they value bringing their children to church, stuff like that. So just really start taking more opportunity within the day to day things that you do to deep dive into your community. Start building those friendships, start improving your mental health, start improving your core values and what you expect out of yourself. Because when you start living those out, those people are going to start resonating with you. And then the ones that you're meant to be yoked with and friendship are going to start coming your way. And so I just encourage you all. I'm so grateful. I'm so thankful for everyone listening to this podcast. I hope it's been such a huge blessing. I know there's been incredible feedback so far about all the roles. You are more than a mom. So go out there, be exactly who God has called you to be. Make those friendships, start those relationships and see where they lead you. Because I guarantee you they're going to lead you to a path greater than yourself. If you want to go really fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go with others. And so that's my tidbit for today. Hope to see you guys next time and have a great rest of your week.