Episode 39
Transcript
Welcome back to the Fully Nourished podcast, a place to explore where female physiology and feminine energy dance together to shape our life experience. I'm your host, Jessica Ash, functional nutritionist and integrative health coach and I'm inviting you to journey with me through both the scientific and spiritual facets of what it looks like to awaken our feminine radiance and become deeply and fully nourished despite living in a society that is increasingly desperate to erase our female set-apartness. You ready?
As a reminder, everything in this podcast is for education and inspiration only and is not intended as medical advice. Please talk to the appropriate professional when necessary. And please use common sense before making any changes to your diet and lifestyle.
Okay, so little warning for today. I don't know what it is. I am so grouchy. It's just Luteal Jessica, but I also think it might be because I didn't have eggs for breakfast. Fun fact about me, I needed eggs every day, or something happens to me where it's hanger. I don't know what it is. It's, I could be eating enough calories, eating enough protein, for whatever reason I need to have eggs every day. And it could be absolutely psychosomatic. Sure, like my routine feels messed with. But it could also be some type of deficiency, I don't know. But if I don't have eggs for breakfast, I just get really grouchy. And then you add in the luteal phase, which feels like a thin veil of tolerance to anything that's going to threaten my feminine state of well being. And that just delicious feeling of having enough progesterone. And so apparently that is eggs for me, not having eggs is gonna threaten my sense of well being. Maybe it's the albumin, I know that eggs do increase albumin. Albumin is a progesterone carrier in the blood. So that could possibly be it.
But anyways, today is the third part of our Heresy Heals series. And today we're going to be talking about female friendships, female competition, the broken bonds between women. And I want to inspire us and myself included in this to be heretics or make different choices than the group in regards to friendship and in regards to community. I feel like right now, overarchingly, the bond between women has been really, not broken, but damaged too and there's physiological reasons to it and energetic reasons to it that we're going to dive in to. I was inspired by a few of you who just asked about female friendships, asked about how I found community, how I found friendships, and I thought I would just share from the heart because it is hard, it's not easy. And on top of that, I feel like if you're really struggling with your community, or you're questioning your belief system, or you're coming to terms with faith in your own ways, or you're just not somebody that is a group thinker, like you don't follow the group, and you're not satisfied with just believing what everyone else believes just because everybody else believes it, it can be really difficult to find like minded individuals. And then you add this extra layer of competition, and these kind of masculine masks that women wear as a protective mechanism. And there's a lot of what's considered intersexual competition between women, which we'll get into the meaning of that in a second. And then you have women who are in a physiological state of just constant burnout, constant stress, constantly overwhelmed, it just makes for a really difficult time finding your people.
I by no means have figured it out. I'm just bumbling through it myself. But I've given a lot of thought to it. And so I'm hoping that we can just chat about maybe the whys behind it. And it can make us feel less alone. And it can make us feel a little bit more determined, and maybe give us some clarity on what to look for moving forward. So in the last episode, we really talked about how getting into your feminine energy is becoming something else that women are having to do. It's almost we as women have gotten very good at masking or almost putting all of these layers on top of us of what a woman should be. Some of these layers are masculine and very protective. We're forcing ourselves to use the masculine parts of ourselves because we're afraid to soften into the feminine, because it feels really weak and it feels very vulnerable. And although it's destroying us physically, because it's not a natural state to be in or a natural state to hold I would say, that's how I would describe it as it's we're holding up this mask or we're holding up this armor of masculine energy, which is not our natural biological state. It is exerting all of our willpower to stay in this state of disharmony. There's no harmony between the masculine and the feminine parts of ourselves, our feminine parts are starved, they're disregarded, they're ignored. And our masculine parts are esteemed as strengths. And then we almost become addicted to them in a way.
What Feminine Physiology Requires
So when we think of our basic physiological need, or our basic physical need, as being safety, that is our basic biological need as females, within that there is an energetic need of the feminine to be seen. And so if you think of it as to be seen, and to be safe within that sense, those are the basic underlying biological drivers of our physiology, no matter what we think, no matter what we believe about ourselves. That is a lot of the reason why we're making the decisions that we're making, even if the decisions are not leading to that place. And so I'm not necessarily talking about that external safety, I'm not necessarily talking about like creating the perfect life with perfect external safety, although a lot of women do pursue that having external safety can be important. But I'm talking more about an internal safety and an ability to have some internal safety and stability within the moving rhythms and the constant ebb and flows that life brings. And it's why our body constantly scans for safety. It's why we constantly are scanning our environment, and looking for confirmations of our security, internally, and within our environment.
When we don't, we feel fear, worry and overwhelm, which is why really, that's like a majority of women right now are in a constant state of fear, worry and overwhelm. And it's so messed up. Because what we really need is that softening, we need to lean into our strength, which is our sensitivity, and to feel what we need to feel. But the last thing we do is allow ourselves to be seen, and to feel and admit to ourselves that we do desire to feel like we are taken care of. Because we have put on this masculine mask, we have decided that we're going to lean into this energy that is not biologically natural to us. Because we've been brainwashed, I would say we have been brainwashed since being very young to “you don't need no man.” And you need to learn how to take care of yourself, and don't rely on anybody else. But yourself. And this is what strength looks like. And we are painted a picture of what masculine strength looks like, that protection will and provisional essence.
When we think of the masculine as the exact opposite, and it's quite literally, the masculine brain does not do this scanning of the environment in the same way that we do. We are making those connections that only estrogen can drive where estrogen just drives us boom, boom, where you'll think about one thing we all do this and if you don't admit that you do this, I know you still do it, is you're thinking about one thing, and then 10 minutes later, you're still thinking but you have jumped from so many different stories in your head where you're like, how did I end up here? Like I started with thinking about what I need to get at the grocery store. And now I'm having an existential crisis. And that is the work of estrogen. It is the power that allows us to make all these connections, that seeking, that searching, that growth, that proliferation, the fantasy, the imagination, but that's why we have progesterone, which brings consciousness, a kind of a relaxation and a piece to that expansion. Because if we did not have progesterone, it would just be continuous, unchecked unconscious growth. And so progesterone brings that consciousness or the vision or the wisdom to that growth.
But testosterone on the other hand, is a very driven and focused type of hormone energetically. And so it's hard for our brains to comprehend because although we get to experience the small amounts of testosterone at certain points of our cycle around specifically around ovulation, which kind of gives us that oomph, like get up and go, that God search, let's take some action, let's get pregnant. We don't even comprehend what it's like to have a high levels of testosterone coursing through our veins on a day in day out basis and how that impacts the brain. The high testosterone paired with the lower estrogen in the lower progesterone in the male physiology really brings a type of depth of focus and a precise decision making that we don't really comprehend. Because whereas our basic biological need is to have safety and to maintain that safety, male physiology’s desire is to create that safety and yes, it is also assessing threats and scanning the environment but it's doing it in a completely different fashion.
The masculine brain does not come with a level of fantasy or imagination that the feminine brain does. And the masculine is scanning the environment for safety based on the logical inputs that it's getting. Whereas our brain is creating stories based on what we're perceiving is happening, what we feel is happening. This is why the masculine grounds the feminine. Male physiology is designed to hold masculine energy, whereas female physiology is not designed to hold up masculine energy. And so for male physiology that's enlivening, it's nourishing to provide and to protect, and to have that weight on the shoulders. It's why men quite literally have their center of gravity in their chest, they are their anatomical structure is broader, up top, and can hold more weight up top, whereas ours is based in our hips, and our core.
But for our physiology, to hold that type of provision and protection, to demand that type of respect, that's not our basic biological needs. So we could do it all day until we're blue in the face and think that's what we want, or what we need, but it's never going to be satisfying. And we're going to continuously be hungry for more, because we are not men. And this is exactly why we've seen as radical feminism has gotten more and more progressed, or more and more evolved, that women are demanding more and more respect, it's what do you even want? What are you even trying to accomplish at this point? They don't even know what will satisfy them, because they don't know what their basic biological need is, only the masculine’s baseline fear is to not be respected, which means to a man, loss of respect means a loss of freedom, it means a loss of the ability to protect and to therefore provide and being seen or being safe, is not high on their priority list. Because that's a vulnerability when you start to see the internal workings of a man. And they start to show you that, they only show that to a specific person that has shown them that they're not going to use it against them, because they biologically know that if they show a weak side, it's going to take away their basic biological desire to provide and to protect.
Whereas we as women can argue all day, that our basic desire is to be respected, but it's a lie. To be respected for our successes and our achievements and our accomplishments, sure, sometimes that stuff does feel nice, but it's not like an absolute need. It doesn't feel that hungry part of ourselves, our basic desire is to be seen and to be heard, and to be safe within being seen and heard, able to be soft, to be vulnerable, and to still be safe within that softness. And that vulnerability that is our deepest basic biological desire and energetic desire. And because that's our basic desire, that's also where our power lies is in our ability to be sensitive, and to be soft, and to be feminine. And you can see how everything's just so messed up right now, because we have been taught the opposite. And we feel so brittle, and so burned out. And so broken down with what we've almost been forced or brainwashed to think it is strength.
Many of us are also struggling in our relationships, because instead of having healthy dynamics and harmony, there's a power struggle, because men are naturally masculine. And then we have women who have been trained to be masculine, and put these masculine masks up so that we are in a way, “protected.” And so we're exerting all of this energy to protect us from having to feel anything, because if we feel or we're vulnerable, we might get burned, we might get hurt. But because of this, not only is it really difficult for us physiologically, and energetically, it burns our bodies out. But if we are vulnerable and sensitive, we will have to feel pain. But we also get to experience the depths of pleasure, which unfortunately most of us have denied ourselves. And so we're starved for sensation. And because we're starved for sensation, we will pursue anything that gives us any sensation at all, even if it's not a good sensation or it's bad for our bodies. We are so desperate to feel something that we just crave it. We're addicted to it. And oftentimes it comes in the form of anything that induces that fight or flight response.
This is why we listen to true crime. It's why we tend to be addicted to drama. Why do we pick the relationship with the bad boy like the one that just whips us around with emotional whiplash? Or why do we pick the friends that are constantly having these drama fests? Or why do so many women consume these erotic romance novels that like when you read it, you're just like, why, but it induces some type of sensation, even if it's a cheap mockery of what you actually desire or need to feel. And it carries into every aspect in every relationship in our life, it carries into what we are attracted to energetically, what's the saying, birds of a feather flock together, vibrations really do attract each other.
Birds of a Feather Flock Together
I know a lot of people tell me, I don't know what I feel about like vibrations, or I don't know how I feel about energy, it feels a little woowoo, or a little new age to me, and it's just, girlfriend, get with the times because this is science, this is your reality that you're living in whether you want to admit it or not, or acknowledge it or not. This is how the world around you works.
And so vibrations are something that kind of attract each other. Everyone will admit that there's electromagnetic fields, we all are our own electromagnetic field, that's what our heart is made for. It's not just a pump that pumps blood through our system, it actually gives off this magnetic pulse. And so all of us carry our own vibration. And it's mainly directed by our mind, and our thoughts. And specifically our subconscious mind, really, our body, our material reality is a reflection or a mirror of our subconscious mind, or our feminine mind, if we want to call it that, we'll get into that in a different episode. And on a very, like physical level, if you think of our bodies as mostly being water, they're mostly water and minerals so that they can electro light, or what we often call minerals, electric light, like it's very simple principle. But it's so that we can be these electrical conductors of energy. And this is modeled and experiments that people have done where they plant a seed, and then they talk to it in a very kind and loving way. And they only say loving affirmations to it. And then they tell another one, how much they hate it and how much they dislike it and how evil it is. And it doesn't grow very fast and eventually starts to die. This is just some simple reflections of our thoughts on our minds. And what we believe about the world itself, which is why we talk about this on the Fully Nourished podcast, is going to absolutely impact us on a very physiological level.
And so going back to our biological nature, as women to be seen, and to be heard, we only feel safe when we're in a state of true connection, it's really important to recognize that we desire to be seen and heard by both the feminine and the masculine. But our relationship with the masculine is different than the feminine. And unfortunately, because we're in a pandemic of loneliness right now, starving for community, if you do have a male partner, if you do have a male spouse, we often end up relying on them to fill that deep craving for feminine connection. And we expect them to be able to give us the type of connection that only other females can. And on a very practical level, this happens often right? Where you are sharing your deepest darkest feelings and what's going on with your husband. And they're like, Okay, what do we do to fix it? What's what, okay, I'm gonna fix this, I want to fix it, or just, they give you advice, I just do this, right? We have to remind them, I just need you to be a shoulder to cry on right now. I just need you to listen, and not necessarily do anything about it, because that is not in their nature.
Whereas when we are talking with other women, very rarely are they like, Okay, here's what to do about it: action steps, bullet points, it often more sounds like, Ooh. That's a clue. Because it's that need for that like feminine venting, where we just need to talk through it and work through it and have the space to have someone hold the space to do that. And the feminine is really good at holding space to receive as a masculine just wants to give. And both are great. Don't get me wrong, but they are just different. And so our deep need for female community is built into our very cells. We used to, as humans, be in these large communities where women would spend all day with each other. And it would be a big variety of women. It would be some women that you didn't necessarily like that much or probably connect with too much. But it was like they were all family because you've grown up together. You had gone through life together this far. And although you would be sharing in the tasks of life doing this like puttering,
I'm trying to think of who talks about it as puttering I think it's Alison Armstrong who writes the Queen's Code, but she refers to how women we just putter around doing all these different tasks where we'll be like cleaning up the fridge and then you walk away and we're like, oh, there's dust on the ground and we'll vacuum up the dust and then we walk into another room and we're like, oh, these clothes need to be folded, and we start folding the clothes. And then we're like, oh, there's laundry, run out and switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer, and then they come back. And we're like, oh, we'll continue to finish the fridge. We just like putter around, we can multitask really easily. But I think of how women would often be puttering together, we just be doing these tasks, mindless tasks, and always talking, always venting, always laughing, and it would keep life so playful and light, it would also help share the burden, and I don’t want to call cooking and cleaning and child rearing as a burden. But it can definitely feel that way if you're doing it all alone, and you're carrying the weight of that alone.
I even think of that in terms of learning nowadays, where all these women would be learning different things and sharing what they're learning with each other. And you wouldn't have to learn all of these things alone, you would have somebody else doing some of the work of learning, and then you would just share what you have been learning or you would share your skills. So you wouldn't have to learn every single skill. And if you wanted to learn a skill, you just have your friend teach you or another person in your community teach you. Whereas now these types of communities are lost, it's truly a lost art. It's not something that is very easily or readily available. Without getting involved in some type of culture, you shouldn't have to force your round peg into a square hole, just to have community or just to be safe in your community, you shouldn't have to put yourself in a box for fear that somebody's going to see the real you and not want you to be a part of their community anymore. And be like, you tuck that crazy right back in there. You should have that continuous feeling of being seen and heard more and more. And not only having people connect to that, but desiring more of it like wanting your contributions and who you are uniquely and seeing the value in that .I think that's part of the importance of that feminine community to just be and to be accepted for just who you are. It's that state of feminine being or becoming like, always in a state of becoming and just being valued for who you are, as a person as an individual how you were created to be.
And even though I just painted the picture of the ideal, a lot of us don't have access to the ideal anymore. And so we have to create the ideal, we have to set out and do the work and figure out how we're going to recreate this in our modern lives. And it's not easy, and I do not have it all figured out. But what I have recognized is that because so many women are in a physiological state of just holding up that masculine mask, terrified of being seen terrified of being vulnerable, maybe because they've been hurt before, in many different ways by their community, or maybe they've just been brainwashed or taught to be that way. Maybe it's a part of their childhood, whatever it might be. But we have to expect that most women are going to have this masculine mask up and be in that physiological state of low capacity or burnout.
And although it might make it harder to form feminine connections and female connections, it does not make it impossible. It's just important to understand when we're interacting with other women or most other women. Of course, there are women out there that don't lead with this mask. In most cases, this is what's up and when it is up. And if we think of a woman who's in an undernourished condition, right? Maybe fertility is low, not getting enough nutrients in a physiological state of famine or scarcity, we can expect that woman to be acting from that type of survival response if there's a level of scarcity physiologically on the cellular level, all of the energy and all of the behaviors and all of the patterns that are pouring out of that are often going to come from a place of vibrational scarcity. And so this brings us to the concept of intersexual competition.
Intersexual Competition
So there's this really interesting study that was done, called Off with Her Hair and it was a way of measuring women's intersexual or female on female competition, and it specifically use this faux salon type scenario. And what it was trying to measure was if women felt that another woman was a threat to her in some way, women are very unlikely to use physical aggression. Instead of using physical aggression, we tend to use indirect aggression because we are a little bit more vulnerable to damage that comes from a violent conflict. Someone can rip off our hair, they could really hurt us. Whereas like our indirect or passive aggressive aggression is much more suited to our desire to maintain a level of physical safety. And so what this study found was really fascinating. It was this idea of reproductive success is obviously a relative and hard to measure value. But it was seen that women could possibly improve their own reproductive success by negatively impacting the reproductive success of another woman. So when women feel threatened, or feel like they're in a state of scarcity, they feel like if they can ruin somebody else's sense of safety, or ruin their ability to be provided for and protected, it will possibly make them more safe. And so for females reproductive success hinges on gaining access to the highest quality male, at least according to the study, while preventing their “rivals” from doing the same.
Women often engage in female on female competition, again, remembering that this is when our body is in a state of physiological scarcity. And we're afraid for our standing, it usually involves that type of indirect aggression. And it usually involves an attack on another woman's appearance, or her reputation. And so in this study, they created this hypothetical salon, and they pretty much tested these women by asking them how much hair they would cut off of another woman. And it was shown the pattern was that the higher quality a woman's hair appeared to be, the more hair the hypothetical hairdresser would recommend the other woman to cut off, it was a way of what would be called appearance sabotage. And it wasn't just appearance, although attack on the physical appearance of another woman seems to be one of the most blatant ways that a woman who's in a scarcity mindset or a fear mindset is going to interact with another woman. But it also includes according to the study, “and may include gossiping, derogation, exclusion from a group, as well as rival manipulation via dishonest or disingenuous advice.” So telling another woman that her clothing is flattering when it's not. And something that I found super interesting that it mentioned was that this behavior often peaks in late adolescence, and then into early adulthood when competitions for me seem to be the highest. But the more physically attractive, a quote unquote female rival, just the term makes me giggle. But the more physically attractive, the rival appears to be, the fiercer the competition that a woman feels.
I thought I'd bring this up, because I find two things really fascinating about this. First of all, if a woman feels a level of competition, that is technically a more masculine behavior. Competitiveness is a more masculine behavior. And we will often see masculine behavior show up in women when they are in a state of survival, or scarcity or famine, or physiologically feel like they need to protect themselves and their safety and their provision is on the line. The second thing that I found super fascinating about this was that a woman's aggression is going to be much more covert, because oftentimes a woman is not going to be aggressive, and put her safety on the line, she's going to try to be aggressive in a way that doesn't threaten her physical safety. And so it's going to be much more covert. And I know this term is overused, but like gaslighting, or she's not going to overtly admit that she's being aggressive. And so I think these are two important points to bring up because a lot of women, unfortunately, nowadays, are in a physiological state of being unsafe. We know that so many women right now are completely undernourished, or under-resourced, and their lack of resources really translates into a scarcity mindset. And hopefully, this helps you see a little bit more clearly why women are behaving the way that they are just, you could just take a look on social media, and know that most women are in a state of like attractiveness competition, where they feel such a sense of insecurity and scarcity and lack of safety from within themselves, that they have to either do some crazy things to their body in their face in order to compete, or they need to tear down another woman in order to compete because they're feeling a lack of safety inside.
This does not exclude women of faith or women in certain belief systems. I often feel actually, like it's more apparent in certain spaces. And I want to bring it up because when looking for friends, this is not something that you can change, only they can change it and they have to take personal responsibility for themselves and their behaviors and they have to become more resourced. So they need you become more resourced from within, as usually does require them to become resourced on a physiological level. And there are those friendships where another woman influences another woman to start nourishing herself and they become nourished together, and the friendship changes. But when you are looking for friends, this is something to be aware of when you're looking for new friendships, it's important to be aware of this state of being that a woman is in, it's very difficult to connect with a woman in this state, because she's not going to be soft, she's not going to be in her feminine, and she's not going to be very regulated nervous-system wise. And so it's going to be a wild ride, let's just put it that way. And we might actually see parts of ourselves in this. But it's important to be aware of that. Even if we were previously in this kind of dysregulated under-resourced state, or we're still working to get ourselves out of it, it's really important to look for female friendships that are not this, even if that's what feels familiar to you, that is not what's going to serve you or call you higher.
And so it goes back to that idea of if you're trying to be better, and you're trying to be different, it's important to recognize that you're going to maybe feel familiar with this type of thing. But it's not going to ever work out, it's going to feel very frictional, it's going to feel very draining. Because this type of woman who's, I shouldn't say this type of woman, a woman who is in this state is going to be very energetically draining. When you become a black hole of self preservation, you suck the life out of everything around you, and you leave everything feeling extremely lifeless and extremely drained. And so you will be in a friendship that is constantly draining you and not feeding you.
And women are meant to heal each other. We are innate healers by nature. And so we are meant to put our hands on each other in that like loving and healing way. We're meant to brush each other's hair and wipe each other's tears and be at each other's births, and grieve with one another and cry together and get in rhythm with one another for men to really get into the depths of being a woman together. And you need to be able to be safe and received from another woman and a woman in the state is not going to be able to receive you, she's only going to want to almost if she is really carrying that masculine mask, she's going to want to constantly almost like force herself onto you in that like more penetrative or masculine way, and she's gonna have a hard time just being with you.
And some of us don't even know what type of friendship we are looking for or we need and that's why it's so important to just put that intention out there. I think if you do believe in God, it's important to pray for a friend, and to pray to be brought a friend instead of go seeking and searching for a friend. Because oftentimes, friends show up in the weirdest of places in ways that you never expected them. Every time in my life that I have been desperately lonely and in desperate need of a friend and have asked, I have always been given a friend. Those are the times when I've actually made my best of friends. And still to this day, have these friends walking beside me in doing life. And if you go out and seek and search for something and just try to make something work, it often does not work out well.
Asking For A Friend
I often find too, that in older friendships. So there's times and places where friendships last a lifetime. And then there's those friends that kind of come and go almost like shooting stars in your life where they may be meant to be there for a season and you lean on each other. And then you just grow in separate directions, and you keep trying to make it work, but it's not working anymore. And it's almost more painful to keep trying to make it work. And sometimes in that case, you have to just cut off the dead split ends and just let it go. As sad as it is or as some as sometimes we need to grieve it, it is the right thing to do when something feels like it's forced or it almost traps you into a box that you've outgrown. That's when you know, okay, this friendship might just need to like be let go of, you don't have to be like we're not friends anymore. But it's just more of maybe the type of friendship that we have is changing.
Another fascinating thing about friendships that I've observed, at least in this modern world, is that because our culture as a whole is pretty shallow. Our relationships with other people tend to be pretty shallow as well. Or almost childish in a way. When we were children, it was just like, Okay, we both like the same things like we don't even need to know each other's name, like we can both play with the same thing and we can enjoy it. And it's interesting because we've carried these childish relationships into adulthood. And it's interesting because people seem to think that what makes them similar is having the same likes and dislikes. And I'm not saying that you just have none of the same likes or none of the same interests. That obviously doesn't work either. But Is it really true that you have to eat the same things and wear the same things and do the same things and value the same things, at least on a material level to be friends, to me that is a little bit closed minded. I feel like the best friendships that I have actually have very different belief systems, very different approaches to life, what they like and dislike. Some of my best friends, like we don't necessarily love the same things. One of my friends loves to shop, I don't really love to shop. But does that mean that we can't be friends? No. And so that's where I think it's really important to stop looking for people that have the same likes and dislikes, and the same belief systems as ours, and look for people who value the same thing, who have the same values, look outside of your age group or your belief system, and look for people that value the same thing, because I promise if you become a little bit less closed minded, and you look for people that align with your vibration, or your values, you find the most interesting people.
But some of my best friends are not in the same age group as me, I have friend who is in her late 30s, I have a friend who is in her 40s, I have a friend who's in her 50s. I have friends of all different ages, and all different groups and all different seasons of life. And I think this is really important. And I was homeschooled. So this was a little bit more normalized in my period of growing up. I realized now that was different than what most people experience, most people experience making friends in their same grade and their same age group, because they're going to the same classes and in their school experience. And that's, of course, totally normal and natural. But I think as you get to adulthood, you can't expect that all of your friends are going to be in your same season of life. And you're doing the same thing as you all the time, you can sometimes find that I'm sure some people have found that. But you shouldn't be closed off to different age groups or different belief system as long as the values align. Because once you connect with somebody, you guys are going to be sharing what you've learned and what you have to teach the other. And don't worry, over time, you will become more similar because as women we become very influenced by our community, we become very influenced by the other females in our lives, and our deep desire to always be better.
Try New Things and Learn
Another tip that I have for you is don't be afraid to try new things. So a lot of my friends have actually been clients or been people that I've gotten bodywork from, or I just happened to go out on a limb, try something new, and pay for a service, and ended up really connecting with the person and had a working relationship with them for a while, that kind of service client relationship, whether that was me doing the service or them doing the service, and over time it morphed into something more. Always be open to that and just be patient enough to hold space for that to occur. It is a great way to meet new people who are a little bit more like minded to you. But one pro tip I can give you is do not take advantage of people. So do not expect your friendship to be like now you get free perks. I have always paid my friends that offer services and continue to keep the business side and the friend side separate because you never want a friend to feel like you're taking advantage of them. However, sometimes the perks of having a friend that's really good at something and you also having something to give or something to offer is that you can swap it, you can share, you can do a trade, which can be very helpful, but always be in the mindset of giving in a friendship and not taking in a friendship, it's really important because the more that you give, the more you will get in return. That's just an energetic law, if that's a big if you are around people that carry the same vibration as you that are in the same kind of value group as you if you're hanging out with people that are takers, or that are energetic black holes, then if you just give and give, they're going to take and take it take so it's your responsibility to not be taken from, it's your responsibility to hold your boundaries. And to surround yourselves with other people that respect your boundaries and that do the same, you would expect the same of them and you better uphold their boundaries and return. This is part of our responsibility as females to uphold that sense of safety. So we can remain soft and vulnerable. Because if we just give and give and give and we surround ourselves with people who don't respect our boundaries, and don't respect us, and don't really allow us to be soft and vulnerable, we will harden and we will get resentful and that's not a healthy relationship.
Then my last tip for you is to sit at the feet of your masters and so this is something I learned many years ago, and I always naturally did. And now I realize the wisdom in it. I had seen other people do it, I had some great models of this behavior. And it's something I carried with me. But it was this idea that if I wanted to learn from somebody, or I wanted to even be friends with somebody I had I carry that attitude of giving into that relationship. It wasn't just hey, do you offer a mentorship? Or hey, can I hang out with you? Does that work? Sure. But it was always like, How can I help you? How can I learn from you, and help you and give back to you because I have received so much from you already. And so this is that idea of sitting at the feet of your masters. If you want to connect with somebody, or there's a woman that you respect that you want to learn from, you should show up and say not, do you offer me some type of mentorship? Or can you teach me all that, or can you disciple me, but you show up in an energy of, I want to give to you because you will receive in return, you know that just being with this person being in their presence, or just being there, while they do their thing is going to teach you so much and give you so much and could possibly develop into a friendship or some type of relationship you are just offering to be with them. And to give and as crazy as this sounds is to not expect anything in return to not turn the relationship into something transactional, right off the bat to not be entitled.
I learned how in traditional cultures, this was often done, where the young maidens or the young women would come into the presence of the wise elders or the wise women and just do whatever they asked, they do a measly or like the mindless tasks, and just help out with the children, help out with all types of things and just be there as hands to help. And so I feel like a lot of our behavior, especially the younger we are right now is a very entitled behavior of like, I'm entitled to learning from you, or I'm entitled to you giving this to me. But if we carry that into a relationship with someone, we're not going to receive very much from it. But if we just say I'm here to help, what can I help you with just understanding that being in that person's presence or helping them is going to teach you things that you would have never learned? Otherwise, it can really transform your life. And oftentimes, the greatest mentorships, or the greatest friendships or the greatest relationships, these kind of mother daughter type relationships that you established with older women come from you doing this. And you should be willing to either give your time or pay, give your money, at least at the beginning until it maybe changes into something else.
I know this episode has not been like five tips to go find friends because I don't really feel qualified to say those things. I only feel qualified to share what I have learned up until this point. But I also will leave you with this: there are times of loneliness and times of being alone, that although they are excruciating, we do learn something through them. And pain is often lessons. And that's not saying that like your loneliness, loneliness doesn't matter, or being alone, like just suck it up. That is not what I'm saying at all. I know how excruciating the times of loneliness can be. I especially experienced a really fierce sense of loneliness after I left religion, or I should say, my church and left my whole community behind all of my friends. And I wish I could tell you that I just like immediately found friends, there was that kind of a seasonal friendship that came in that was like that kind of I knew I needed someone to lean on. But I realized that oh, this is probably not going to last but I really cherished it while it did last. And then there was just a period of like really severe loneliness, where I just craved female friendship, and I craved feminine connection. But I didn't know where to find it. And I tried different things. And I just eventually got to the point where I'm just going to do what I'm going to do, I'm just going to do the things that I'm called to do, the things that I'm interested in. And it will come to me like it will be brought to me in the time that it's supposed to, and it absolutely was.
But there were times of excruciating loneliness, where it is hard to not have that connection and to just crave it and to want it but to try to force it would have been almost more hurtful. Now that I look back and say, if I just tried to surround myself with people that I didn't really connect to, who weren't true friends, were just people to be around people, I would have probably prolong my process of healing and growth. And so I think some of us really do desire to be around people. And so we're putting ourselves around people that are really stealing our energy or keeping us from growing and that can also be damaging, as well as what's the old saying, there's a time for everything under the sun. And there really is and friendships do come and go but I do feel like compared to like my early and mid 20s. That's a time and I've seen a few of you reach out to me who are in your early, mid, even late 20s, saying that I just I haven't been able to find friends yet. And that, to me does feel like some of the hardest times because you are learning who you are, you're growing really quickly, the period of your whole 20s is really about just growth and transformation and figuring out who you are as a person and who you were made to be and what your purpose is. And sometimes you don't find it even in your 20s. It takes a while, sometimes it takes a whole lifetime. But especially in that time, where you're transforming from a child into an adult, it just feels so scary. And it feels like you're just figuring out so much and like the world is just so scary and intimidating.
If you're there, just know that it does get better. And you will find those friendships that last a lifetime, those true feminine connections that you are craving. Just focus on being the friend that you want, being the friend that you deserve, and you will attract that type of friend, but it might come in a place that you don't expect. It might be a woman that you don't expect, might be a person that you don't expect, they might have a belief system that you don't expect. And it's really important to remember that we might have an idea of what it looks like, of what we need, but we don't actually know exactly what we need. And that's something that's outside of our realm, and in God's realm.
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