Season 7 Episode 3: Women & Friendship

Research tells us how important friendships are….but when you’re a busy, working mummabear it can be hard to find the time to be a good friend.  And what even is a good friend? What makes a good friendship? In this episode of “Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mummabear,” Master Certified Life Coach Melissa Wiggins gets real about her stories of friendship, what to do when the stories we tell ourselves aren’t helpful, and how create friendships that are flexible instead of fragile.  Grab a cuppa and listen in.

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Hello lassies and lads. Welcome to Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mummabear. I missed you guys last week. If you are listening to do this in real time, you know that I live in Florida and hurricane in came through Florida and has really caused so much have a we are actually so lucky. We lost power for about three days, our local little town College Park, which is you know, just looks on to downtown Orlando had sent calls and the leaks came up onto the land. And a lot of people were flooded out of their homes, they lost their cars, sweet Sanibel Island where I go and do my solo trips, once or twice a year has really just been, you know, taken off of the world. And it is completely flattened. It is heart wrenching. And so our family have been trying to help people as much as we can. There are a lot of families in need. And if you're listening, and you're one of those amazeballs people who just kept checking in on my family and other people I know I just wanted to say thank you, and I missed you.

Okay to change completely, to go from something really sad to something really happy. I feel like that is the story of my life. If you have listened to this podcast for a while, you know that I see we find joy in the journey, we create the joy, we choose the joy, I am not one of those people that believes that your life has to be amazeballs. And all of the area's in order for you to enjoy it. I have some extremely difficult personal things I'm going through right now. And I also have lots and lots of joy. And I've shared a little bit of it that before during my son's journey, and most of you know he had pediatric cancer. And during that time, we were able to find joy. And so this podcast is super special.

If you are listening to this podcast right now and you're like, oh my gosh, what is the podcast called? What is she going to talk? I promise you a couple of things. I have a takeaway. And I'm going to be talking about friendship and women and why it's important for us. So you're going to want to stick around to hear all of the research about it. And also some personal stories.

Most of the time I give like a little weave of personal stories, but this one, I feel a little bit cold to get into a little bit deeper and a little bit more personal than normal. So if personal is not your jam, this might not be the best episode of mine's to listen to.

Find the FULL Transcript here: Season 7 Episode 3: Women & Friendships

Transcript

Hello lassies and lads. Welcome to Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mummabear. I missed you guys last week. If you are listening to do this in real time, you know that I live in Florida and hurricane in came through Florida and has really caused so much have a we are actually so lucky. We lost power for about three days, our local little town College Park, which is you know, just looks on to downtown Orlando had sent calls and the leaks came up onto the land. And a lot of people were flooded out of their homes, they lost their cars, sweet Sanibel Island where I go and do my solo trips, once or twice a year has really just been, you know, taken off of the world. And it is completely flattened. It is heart wrenching. And so our family have been trying to help people as much as we can. There are a lot of families in need. And if you're listening, and you're one of those amazeballs people who just kept checking in on my family and other people I know I just wanted to say thank you, and I missed you.

Okay to change completely, to go from something really sad to something really happy. I feel like that is the story of my life. If you have listened to this podcast for a while, you know that I see we find joy in the journey, we create the joy, we choose the joy, I am not one of those people that believes that your life has to be amazeballs. And all of the area's in order for you to enjoy it. I have some extremely difficult personal things I'm going through right now. And I also have lots and lots of joy. And I've shared a little bit of it that before during my son's journey, and most of you know he had pediatric cancer. And during that time, we were able to find joy. And so this podcast is super special. Because next week, it is my beautiful daughter's fifth birthday.

If you are listening to this podcast right now and you're like, oh my gosh, what is the podcast called? What is she going to talk? I promise you a couple of things. I have a takeaway. And I'm going to be talking about friendship and women and why it's important for us. So you're going to want to stick around to hear all of the research about it. And also some personal stories.

Most of the time I give like a little weave of personal stories, but this one, I feel a little bit cold to get into a little bit deeper and a little bit more personal than normal. So if personal is not your jam, this might not be the best episode of mine's to listen to. A lot of the time I'm giving like, here are the three tips here is the way to thought reset. And I feel like friendship is just so personal. And I've had such a complicated relationship with friendship, that I wanted to share it because if you're out there and you're a mama bear, and you're working and friendship has been a little rough lately, stick around. Or if you're someone who's listening to this and saying, Hey, I would love to get better at Friendship, then stick around also. So hopefully some of you are going to keep listening.

I'm going to share a little bit of my heart on friendship and I feel like starting at the beginning is probably a good idea. So in high school, I was very athletic. I was not to brag but very good at all of the sports. And it didn't really matter what it was. I just have like quite an athletic body and sports just came really easy to me. Also, the spore was just I don't know it just works for my brain. I still love moving my body. I lift weights almost every day. I just I love moving my body. I love exercising as well.
The endorphins that come after it.

And so in high school, I really didn't make very many friends. Actually, my kids asked me recently, are you friends with anyone from high school, and there are a couple of people that I have been in touch with, but not in the way that I guess I'm proud of. So I hung out with a lot of boys. So I was always very girly, but tomboyish. So if you're, if you're like, what, like, you probably look on my Instagram be like, she's so girly, and I am with my clothes selection. But I feel like my energy is pretty masculine. And I got to work on some of those feminine things. But my personality is very masculine, I am pretty hardcore about most things. I'm all in, or I'm all out. And I struggle with sort of being in the middle. And so that was always very difficult with friendships. So there was two kind of groups in high school and one was like the super cool girls. And I didn't fit in there, even though I super tried to. And then the other group was the super smart girls who all those girls now are like doctors and lawyers, and I wanted to be with them. And then that group, but I always felt I lived in a different tone than the town, I went to high school. So at the time, the time that I was living in was, was kind of made fun of, it was like where the poorer people lived. And it's kind of funny now, because when I go back there, it is no longer like that, it's actually really nice, and has a lot of really good areas.

But growing up, because I would get on a bus and go to a couple of times down to go to high school, people would make fun of the people on the bus who would come in from other towns to go to the school. And the reason my parents sent me there was because they wanted me to go to the best public school that I could go to. And I got in, and that's where I went in, I'm much older than all of my siblings, I'm the oldest of five. So they all ended up going there. But I was not in high school with at all of them. And I really struggled with this being made fun of with the other, you know, with living in a different town, also, my dad was a window cleaner. And when you're a teenager, and your dad cleans the windows of the people you go to high school with, and then you have to go and ask them for the money. And then in high school, they sing songs like when I'm cleaning windows, you kind of feel disconnected like I, I didn't feel like I belonged and the different groups and so I would flip flop around from like one group to the other and try to find my place and I had periods of good relationships.

But high school ended up being for me, I got a boyfriend who was older than I was. And that became my social life was hanging out with him. I basically dated him for most of high school. And so that became my identity, right. And so friendship just wasn't really as important to me. So then I go to undergrad, I do a business law degree. And at this point, I'm drinking a lot. And I'm hating it, of course, because I was an active alcoholic, and I would drink and hide it and my clothes and my parents house because they couldn't afford to live in the city where I went to college university. And so I stayed at home with my parents until I was 22. And I would hate it. And so what happened was I got in with this really amazing group of girls. And they were the smartest, smartest girls just incredible lassies. And I just really wanted to be a part of that group.
But I would show up late because I would be hungover, I would ask them further notes. And I just I put in a lot of work, but it wasn't to the level of what they did. And eventually what happened was they started to exclude me from the group and told me they didn't want me in the group. And of course, at that time, I'm completely and my disease and I you know, thought they were just horrible human beings. And now as a 38 year old, almost 39 year old women next Friday, my daughter and I had the same birthday. I know that that's not true. They were not horrible human beings. What they were doing was setting boundaries around themselves and the friendship and they were absolutely right to do so. And it feels good to be at that point. And for sure.

So then we move to the next one, which was my law school degree. And the same thing happened. So now I have two examples of this. And it was very similar. So again, I just thought, I'm just so unlucky, you knew I and my parents were like, these girls are horrible. And the truth was, I just wasn't a great friend. And so then I went to become a lawyer, and I moved to Edinburgh. In my last year of law school, I did a lot of drinking and made a lot of mistakes. And then I got a job as a professional. And then I felt like I had to because I was a lawyer, I had to like, hide some of my drinking. So I tried to be a good friend to one of the other training attorneys. And she's just, she's just sold the earth, good person. But the reality is, I never put in as much as what they did. So I've had that story.

 And if you're listening, and you're like, I don't relate to the drinking part, but I relate to the friendship piece, I want you to know what that did for me was it created the story that's narrated, this thought, in my mind, that I am just not good at Friendship, like friendship is not something I'm good at. And the truth is that that's not true. So when I do the work, right, with my coach, or when I'm self coaching myself on this stuff, I realized just because I did a shit job in the past, doesn't mean I'm doing a ship job now. And also, is it helpful to believe you're not good at friendships? And the truth is no, like it's not. And what emotion is tied to that thought, this is something that came up in my group call this week for empowered life, which is my six month coaching was one of the other comments on the call said, you know, what emotion is tied to that thought? And I thought, yeah, like, what emotion and it's just shame for me. It's just all about the shame that I'm not good enough brand. I don't do enough. I can't be enough. And so my all or nothing, personality is like, well, I just wouldn't have any friends.

Right? What? Like, I hope you're laughing too, right? Because we have to laugh about this. And listen, if you're someone that relates to this topic, please send me a message. Like let's talk about it. Because I think friendship as adults as mama bears is not the easiest thing in the world. And what I will say is that I'm doing better.
And there I mean, there could be people listening to this right now who are like, 'yeah, Mummabear. No, you're not,' but and my mind comparatively, to the past, I feel like I'm doing better. Do I have room to grow? 100%? I totally do. And I think I will be working on this for ever.

But it is my birthday next week. And I reached out to some of my close friends and I tried to make some plans. And I just, there's this doctor Dr. Marisa Franco, and she talks about friendships being flexible, not fragile. And when you have that all or nothing personality, which I'm trying to know, have as this big story of my life, and I'm really working on that right now. When you have that it's easy to be like, Oh, it's broken. It's fragile. It's done. And state of like friendship can be flexible, like it can be something that there are seasons that are sleepy, and there are seasons that are more activated. And there are seasons where you talk every single day because you're maybe both going through something.

You know, I've had friendships like that during my my time as the founder and CEO of our nonprofit cannonball, kids cancer. We had one particular friend who we traveled with each other, we went to just literally hundreds of hospitals, maybe not hundreds. That's a slight exaggeration, but like, I don't know, lots and lots and lots, we went to, like 25 states within a couple periods of months. And we just we spent a lot of time together. And we loved it. And we love each other and we still love each other. And we will randomly takes no because no, we're not both in the organization. And our lifes have changed a little bit since then. And you know, while we can both be sad that we're not in that period of time anymore. We'll both text each other periodically, and we both are at the school of thought that we love each other and care about each other deeply regardless of whether we're talking every single day, regardless of whether we're traveling the country together, there's so much mutual love and respect. And that's beautiful.

And it's like accepting that friendships can be flexible, they can go into periods of like the Do Not Disturb mode on your phone like they're sleepy, they're just not as active. And then you could be moving into a different period where like, no, a lot of my coaching clients, we start to become really close friends, one in particular, and we're really becoming super close. And that's beautiful. And I hope that it will last forever. And that's another part right, some friendships, they will last forever, and others will not. And knowing lassies that that is not something to have shame about. I am telling you lassies if I could just tell you like how hard it is for me to like feel like sometimes I'm accepted in a group, or that I feel lonely in a group. And I know that that's my addiction and my disease, it tells me that but if you're struggling with it, just know other people are too we just don't talk about it all the time. And I just felt really called to talk about it right now because it's coming up to my birthday. And I'm about to do some really fun things with some friends.

This weekend, we're going to this bioluminescent clear kayak adventure. Next week with another group of friends, I'm going go karting. I've created a gratitude lunch for all of my clients. I just I got really granular on. I mean, I don't want to say I did a friendship audit, although I do highly recommend those. But I did really start to think, what are my values? And what are my goals and what friendships are aligned with those. And just because people aren't aligned with them, doesn't mean I can't not be friends with them. But I have to know, I have limited time. I have really limited time, I have four children who are 11 and under who are completely obsessed with me, which is beautiful. But I literally go to bed at the same time as them. I'm tucking the men and walking into my bed. Because I get up super early in the morning because I work out in the morning before the kids are weak. And And that night, my kids are sitting on my phone and I don't even have my phone. I'm either reading a book or watching a show or probably both in my case.

And so when I think about who I'm around and who I'm spending time with, and who those friends are, I do think about values and goals. I started more recently asking friends to do things like kayaking, like whitewater rafting, like going go karting and having things that are about gratitude, like the gratitude lunch, really just trying to align those friendships with, here's some things that are important to me. I don't want to just go for lunch. I want to walk I want to go on a Jeep ride, I want to go to the beach, I want to I want to be out there living life large like Ulo. Okay, I'm getting so excited right now you can probably tell my voice is changing. But I want to have friendships that are deeper, which means I need to probably have less, and I do have less than I used to. And those friendships are so meaningful. And to be able to do things, not just food things, but fun adventure things and aligning that with the person.

I am it just feels so good to try to let go have the narrative of like you are shit at Friendship, Melissa, girls do not like you, which is literally sentences in my mind, thoughts that I have had, like, I am not my thoughts. But the problem is repeating the same thought over and over and over again. It means that becomes a belief. And so I have literally had to untangle this whole belief that girls don't like me. And less than lots of girls don't like me. What is the saying? Like if you want to be liked by everybody, just stay home and do nothing. That's not me. I put myself out there. I tell people I'm sober. I talk about problems. I've had struggles I've had and that's who I am and you'll either like it or you won't. And both are fine. They were in high school. We weren't in college. They were so hard. I wanted everybody to like me.

So if you're listening and you're like oh my gosh, I get it. I wanted everybody to like me lassies if there is one thing you get from this, please know that people not liking you, probably means you're doing something, a f'in, awesome, I was gonna cuss there but some things my kids might listen to....a f'in frickin', right, like you're doing something awesome, right? And people are going to judge you, you start a nonprofit, they're going to judge you, you don't start a nonprofit, they're going to judge you, you shift career from the nonprofit and you start a self development company, they're going to judge you, you don't do something outside of the nonprofit, they will judge you. So knowing that fact glasses to be true. Know that you have control over that you now know, they're going to like you no matter what you do, or they're going to not like you. And getting comfortable with people liking you or not liking you will allow you to just be who you are, instead of becoming what you think they want.

We're getting deep lassies, I'm just sharing all of the things because this has been a big struggle for me. And it feels vulnerable to be sharing it and it feels uncomfortable to be sharing it. And that's exactly why I need to share it. Right. I know this is growth. That's episode for me feels growthy, the word growthy, it just started a new hashtag. 

But seriously, Forbes magazine, all of the research says over and over that female friendships are good for mental health. They're good for physical health. They're good for living longer, literally, they create oxytocin, that's a scientifically proven, right. I'm not making this up. I want more oxytocin in my life. Heck, yes. I want to live longer. Heck, yes. But I also want to be deeply connected with a tight group of friends. I don't want to be the friend to meet you, and detoxes the last three months of my life onto you. I want to be the friend who's asking you, 'where do you want to be in a year's time?' I want to be the friend who is like, 'what was the hardest thing you've done in the last six months? What thing have you not done that you're going to do over the next year?' That's the type of friend I want. And that's the one I want to be, I want to be the person who you know, when you sit down, I am genuinely interested in your life.

Okay, I don't know if you're listening to this, and you need a friend.
But I have some incredible friends. I just have a small, tight group. And I'm interested in laughter and fun. And I just wanted to get on here and I wanted to share an episode to say sometimes in this world of social media, it feels lonelier, it feels harder, it feels more disconnected. And then what happens is we create these stories. Like we're not good at friendships, we're crap friends, girls don't like me excetera. And what I want for you to do with this episode is two things. One, I want you to write down every story you have about you as a friend, and your friendship groups. Look at those friendship groups. But also what stories do you have? And literally ask yourself if they're true? Are they helpful? I'm serious. If you want a thought reset these, you have to look at it. And it's hard. It's really hard because sometimes you're gonna look at it and you're gonna say, oh, my gosh, I am not good at this part. I am really bad at that I owe this person an apology. And I have done those things. And then there are other ones where you know, people have wronged you and harmed you and you have to create those boundaries around those people. I want after you have done that, to think about your five closest friends, and I want you to take them and arrange to see them over the next six months. Okay?

And I'm saying over the next six months because the people that listen to this podcast are busy working mummabears, you may if you're lucky get once a month to go see some friends. If your life is like mines, where like every Saturday, Sunday is like sports and church and all the things that's a reality. So I got deep, I got really real and I'm showing you I feel like I just like flashed you or something.

But if you could see me, you'd see that my like cheeks are a little fluffy. But I hope that it really gives you a little bit of hope to know you're not alone. This is something that it's hard for for mummabears, and it's especially hard for working mama bears who feel like they really don't have any space in their life to push into friendships. Listen, you want better mental health, you want more oxytocin, you want to live longer, go hang out with your girlfriends. Okay. Lastly, I love you. Coach Mummabear. Listen, there are so many freebies like from here that you can go watch, download, use it. We will be, in a month or so if you're listening in real time, be bringing on some people for the next round of EmpoweredLife Mastermind. We begin in January of 2023 for six months, super excited about that. And yeah, I'm gonna go have some birthday fun. Me and my girl Charlie, we're heading into birthday week. So have an amazeballs day lots of love.