February 3, 2022 • 34 mins
The New York Times Best Selling author and founder of IF:Gathering, Jennie Allen {@jennieallen}, is back on the podcast to talk about her new book Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World. Loneliness has become a major issue and it’s impacting our health and overall well-being. If you’re feeling lonely…you’re not alone and this book is a great tool to help create community in your life. Jennie shares vulnerable stories from her own life, how to overcome the barriers to making new friends, the type of friend you are + the types of friends you need, and so much more! Jennie also shared with us 4 things she is thankful for…she gave us a book recommendation, a tv show, an instagram follow, and a drink that we need to try!
Find Your People releases Feb. 22, 2022 but you can pre-order with the link below:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593193385?ref=exp_radioamy_dp_vv_d
4 Things Gratitude Journal:
https://www.theshopforward.com/products/4-things-gratitude-journal-2-0
To send Amy an email: 4ThingsWithAmyBrown@gmail.com
For more info: RadioAmy.com + @RadioAmy on Instagram
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty,
but it's pretty beautiful than that. A little moth kicking four.
(00:32):
All right, sitting here across from my friend Jenny Allen.
She is our guest for today's episode. You're on the
podcast like two years ago, Jenny, when your last book
came out. But now you have another one which I'm
super excited to talk about today because I'm already obsessed
with it. It's called Find Your People, Building deep community
in a lonely world. But before we get into talking
(00:54):
about the book, I just want to read a little
bio about you, Jenny, which you're the founder of IF Gathering,
which I have gone to before. It's amazing, and you'll
have another one coming up right yes, March fourth and fifth,
and it's online. Everybody can watch it. Jenny is the
host of Made for This podcast and the book she
came on to talk about last time ended up being
a New York Times bestseller and it's called Get Out
(01:16):
of Your Head. And you have a lot of other
amazing things on your resume in addition to that. You're
a mom, you're a wife, you're a friend, which is
fitting because that's what this book is all about friendships. Yes,
And speaking of friends, another friend of the podcast is
actually someone that endorsed your book. And here's what Annie
f Downs had to say about find your people. Deep
(01:38):
community is the path to health, joy, success. Connection. Find
your people will inspire you, challenge you, and encourage you
toward the relationships you need and want. Oh that's so kind.
And Jenny, I pulled a quote from the book that
I want to mention just because I do this podcast
so that people don't feel alone. Whatever it is, maybe
(01:59):
just one person listening that needs to hear a particular episode,
and I share things for that same reason. And I'm
just so thankful you wrote this book. And the quote is,
do you ever wonder if maybe you're the only person
who feels this alone? You aren't. You aren't alone and
feeling alone. So I'm just thankful to know. And I'm
(02:21):
sure for others listening, if they happen to be feeling alone,
for them to be reminded that they're not alone. Well,
I think that's the hope in the weird, weird way.
I mean, it's bad news, right, we're all lonely three
and five people. Research says we're lonely prior to the pandemic.
So you can imagine now it's a good four to
five out of five that are feeling lonely, I would imagine,
(02:42):
And so we've got a crisis and so on one hand,
that's really sad. On the other hand, everybody needs a friend, right,
You're going to initiate with people that are also feeling
lonely and that hope to build this into their lives
as well. We seem like we have the ability to
be more connected than ever because we have phone, we
have FaceTime, we have Instagram, Facebook, like all the things
(03:04):
to connect that other people didn't have. Podcast that's another
perfect example. So why are we feeling so lonely with
all this quote unquote connection. So the way that we're
built is a hundred and fifty people are kind of
our maxive acquaintances. Well, most of us follow a way
more than that on Instagram, Facebook. Certainly our news stories
(03:25):
are coming from the ends of the earth. We're hearing
everybody's problems, right, but a hundred and fifties about what
we can handle. And that's just acquaintance knowledge. You know
a name, you know a problem, you know, Hey, this
is what's going on. We can handle about fifty people
to be part of our village are deeper community, which
means I would take you a castle role if I
found out your mom had cancer or something to where
(03:46):
I was reaching out to those fifty. I can't do
that for the hundred and fifty, but I can do
that for about fifty people I can. I can kind
of move into their lives on an occasional basis and
play a role. We only have margin for a daily
relationship with about five. That's that's how many were able
to like keep up with on a weekly daily basis. Well,
what social media has done is is basically made our
(04:08):
acquaintances so large, and we don't have any of the
inner circles. We don't have. We're not taking a cast
role to the neighbor when we find out they're going
through chemo because we're so exhausted from carrying the weight
of the entire earth. So we basically have compassion fatigue.
You know, we care about every problem that comes along,
or we try to, and then we don't have the
margin or the compassion or the time to help the
(04:30):
neighbor that really just needs us. So I think why
we feel disconnected and lonely is we've really broken the
system the way that it's existed since the beginning of time,
which was small villages of people. And ironically, from the research,
those numbers are exactly what would play out in a village.
Most villages are between fifty and a hundred and fifty
people today. If you walk into a little bitty town
(04:51):
in Italy, which I've done, and you go to this
little grocer and this little little bitty town that's not touristy,
me and my husband show up there, you walk in,
the whole grocery store stops and said, who are you?
What are you doing here? You know, because they know
each other, no, no strangers come in from the outside.
That's how eight percent of the world even lives today.
So they were in that is, living very independently from
(05:12):
each other. And I don't even mean that like we
don't have friends. I mean that we don't rub shoulders
with people. We know their names and we care about
and we build a relationship with My thesis is that
it's time we change that and that we notice the
village that that we've been placed in right around us,
and that might come from the Starbucks, that might come
from a local church. It might come from a soccer team,
(05:34):
that might come from an apartment complex, that might come
from a job coworking situation. But to start to look
at the village that you've been placed in, and how
can you begin to see these people as potential friends?
As you were researching the topic of loneliness, what a
scientist say about what loneliness is doing to our health,
to our well being. I mean, we're starting with all
(05:54):
the bad news. We've got a major problem, not just
in the numbers of people that feel lonely. But they say,
and again, when I say this in rooms full of people,
everybody cocks their head and starts googling to see if
I'm right, because they can't believe it. But I am right.
You can look it up. Basically that doctors are saying
that that loneliness and isolation is worse for your health
than obesity, smoking, or alcoholism and drinking too much. Like
(06:17):
it's worse than all those things. And so it's a
it's a crisis. If everybody is feeling lonely and isolated,
which we all are because of the pandemic, right all
of us, then we've got it affecting our health not
to mention our mental state. Anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts. Those
are all, I mean, unquestionably at the highest levels people
(06:37):
have seen in this generation, especially the younger generation coming.
So we know there's a problem. What is that problem?
And I truly believe it's that we've given up on
real life connection. And now I'm not talking even about
two to three best friends, although that is the goal
for all of us, and that's certainly a goal in
the book, but it's bigger than that. It's we need
the context of a village. We need older people to
(06:59):
tell us how to parent teenagers. We need younger people
to come into our lives because they are more available
and flexible on a Friday night and can come over
and play games with us and hang out with us
and help raise our kids and tell our kids, no,
don't do that right in front of us, because it
takes a village. And and then people that are single
need people to be around that have different problems than
(07:20):
them and and yet understand their problems. So I just
think we have been functioning looking for two to five
people that are exactly like us. And if we're married,
our hope is that their spouses then will be best
friends with, you know, our husband, and it's just not realistic.
It's it's literally not how anyone has ever lived. So
why do we think this is gonna work when it
obviously isn't. And so my hope is that we open
(07:42):
our eyes and see who's around us. Who's that person
that walks their dog in front of your house every
single day and you've never spoken to, and strike up
a conversation. Uh, some of the people that are reading
the book. Early one of the girls in this Facebook
group said, you know what I did today? She said,
I was at gymnastics with my little girl. I say
the same people every time, and today, instead of just
nodding and waving and then looking at my phone, I
(08:03):
talked to the woman next to me for thirty minutes.
We had the best conversation. At the end of it,
we decided to have game night with our husbands next week.
She said. We've been sitting next to each other for months,
looking at our phones next to each other. So my
hope is that it's almost like you put on glasses
to see the world differently, and instead of always running
errands by yourself, call a friend and go to Costco
and split split toilet paper. You know, like, let's take
(08:26):
this technology that we've been given in our generation and
start using it for good and let it be a
spark that starts connection rather than the screen we stare
out for seven seven hours a day. Since you mentioned
some people are reading it earlier, which I have an
early copy too, let's just say it's out February, just
to clarify when others want to get it. That's still
(08:47):
the same. That's the same. Yes, Okay, so February two,
and it's called Find Your People. And you know me
looking at you Jenny on Instagram or you know we
I live in Nashville, you live in Dallas. But you know,
in seeing you as the leader of a major organization
and surrounded by all these people and your family, I
(09:08):
would just think, oh, she's totally got this on lock.
Like she's good. She would never struggle with something like this.
So what was it like for you to deal with loneliness?
I mean I have different seasons in my life that
have been hard for different reasons. There have been times
that friends have quit me and there's reasons behind that
(09:28):
that are really hard, and there were very vulnerable to
write about. It was a lot of times always my fault.
And then there are times that, like I just moved
to Dallas about four and a half five years ago,
and I had to start completely from scratch pretty much
and make friends for the for the first time in
a long time. That was incredibly hard. I was a
pastor's wife for many years, and that's a whole lonely
(09:51):
thing where where people are friends with you, but they
also see you as playing a role in their lives
rather than just a friend. So I've had different seasons
where it's been hard for different reasons, but I would
say that the hardest has been is when I have
people in my life and I get hurt more than
when I've been completely lonely. Um. Somebody said the other day,
(10:12):
you know, I'm perfectly fine if I'm sitting by myself
with Jesus, like I don't have any problems, you know,
And it's true, because it's like, if you're just by
yourself in your house, like life's pretty good. You don't
nobody's bothering you, you're not bothering anybody else. But if
you get into relationships, you will get hurt, and you
probably will hurt someone else. And so there's just a
real issue of do I even want this, Like I
(10:34):
don't even know if this is worth it. And I
would say that probably is the biggest temptation and all
of us is just to say, you know what, I
have tried this and it doesn't work for me, and
yet it doesn't work for us not to have this
either and we are craving it. And so what does
it look like to say, you know what, I'm gonna
brave this. And I would say to someone, what if
five times you get rejected, because it does happen where
(10:57):
people don't want this or think they have it, or
they just don't have the capacity for it, and you
get rejected five times, But on that sixth time you
make one of your favorite people that you will be
best friends with till you die. That would be worth it,
Like you would deal with the rejection five times if
on the sixth try it resulted in a life long friendship,
not that it wouldn't be still full of complications, but
(11:20):
you would do it. And so that is my hope,
as though even though we're all tired, even though it
feels like I've tried this and it's it's gone poorly
for me, that we would, we would give it another
shot because we truly were built for this. Our bodies
do not function well, our emotions do not function well,
our minds do not function well without this, and so
(11:41):
we gotta fight for it. I mean, yeah, God designed
us for connection. Yes, yes, I find that Yeah, isolation
and I like being alone. I mean I have to
recover because I haven't a very extroverted job, but I
(12:05):
tend to lean more introverted, so I need my recovery time.
But then there's a time where my recovery time begins
to look unhealthy and I have to check myself because
that isolation will yes lead down a path where it's
not good for me to have too much of it.
And I'm self aware enough to know now through therapy
that I would lean way too into it and that
(12:27):
could be dangerous for me. And to be fair, I
think what you just described, Amy, is what all of
us are feeling. It is easier to get in our
robe and pick Netflix than to even attend the party
we said we were going to attend. Right, we are
socially tired, we are emotionally tired. I think something about
the pandemic took something out of us that it's just
we're not quite back and maybe we never will be
(12:49):
in the same way. I mean, just to speak to that.
What I've had to start doing. I believe this enough,
and what I hope the book will cause to happen
for people is that they'll believe it enough that they'll
just start saying yes to some things, not everything, because
you're right, we definitely still need downtime, not everything. I'm
not suggesting that at all, but I've noticed when it's
(13:10):
Netflix or a few friends where we're gonna grab, you know,
a late night drink and catch up, that I will
come home feeling more rested and energized by those few
friends than I do from just staying at home. And
I think that's what I hope people here is you
actually are craving this, and it actually does even for introverts.
Some level of connection is You're made for that and
(13:32):
you need it, and so it really does fill you up,
even if you also have to recover from it and
get some downtime. To what qualities do we need to
be looking for in these potential friends, well, in order
to have like this deep, meaningful friendship that you're speaking about, Well,
so one of the things I did in the book
was I laid out all the different types of friends
there are. Right, So there's challenging friends that will tell
(13:55):
you the truth. There's encouraging friends. There's there's foxhole friends
I call them, which is like they'll get in there
beside you and and work beside you, and clean out
your closet with you, or dream of a new project
with you, like they're just beside they're kind of sitting
next to you friends. And then you have the fun
friend that literally is always initiating something. But the reason
I put all those types of friends in there is
(14:16):
because what we tend to do is we expect or
need or want two to three people to play all
those roles in our lives. So we miss potential friendships
and people that might make us crazy, like our mother. Right, Like,
we may feel like my mom makes me crazy, but
really she's actually probably a good friend to you. Not
all moms by any means, but a lot of moms
have been beside you a lot of your life, have
(14:37):
to have great knowledge of you. They might not be
good at this, but they are good at this, and
and and so we tend to just look for three
people that are just like us in the same life stage,
and we need them to be fun, take initiative, they
need to organize things well, they need to do all
these things or we're disappointed in them. And I hope
in putting the different categories of people is to go,
you know what, Yes, everyone's going to disappoint you, so
(15:00):
let's just all agree. I will disappoint you, you will
disappoint me. We all disappoint each other. But you know
what I'm good at. I'm good at being fun. I'm
really good at creating an experience in a memory, So
I'm going to play that role in my friendship's lives.
I'm not good at remembering your birthday. I'm just not.
I always forget birthdays. So my other friend, she never
forgets a birthday. There is a card first thing in
(15:22):
the morning on my doorstep. But if I get angry
at my fun friend that doesn't remember my birthday because
she doesn't remember my birthday, then I'm gonna be stuck
every single year. I'm gonna either withdrawal, like whatever. I
just think we need to see have a lot more grace,
expect people to disappoint us, and then see that a
lot of those needs and desires we have are being
met by a bigger circle of people than just your
(15:44):
tightest two to three people, and then we end up
with more of a village, which is my goal of
the book, than just two to three besties. Hopefully you
have that too, But we were never meant to have
all of our relational needs met by two to three people.
And so my hope is that we see the our
friendship pool and our relational pool as bigger than just
(16:05):
two to three people in our same life stage. So
we look for all kinds of things and we appreciate
what people bring to the table rather than always being disappointed.
I love that so much, and I think that's huge.
That's something that you know, the friend may need to
hear or you may need to hear for yourself, and
like have that reminder because I think sometimes we have
these expectations on people that are not going to be
(16:27):
never gonna be met. Then there's resentment, yeah, and you
could be sad about it or just go, you know what, Oh,
I'm gonna let everybody down to right there, there's that
reality of and then when you function in that kind
of grace with each other, it breathes oxygen into relationships
that I think we desperately need right now especially, And
so what about ways to form these friendships or they're
like ways to take relationships to a deeper level, like
(16:51):
once you've got them in their little category of what
type of friend they are, but are there things we
can be doing to be proactive? I'm asking specifically for
myself because I spent many years of my life up
until the last few realizing I was avoidant in connection
and I just kept most people at a distance because
if they hurt me, then it wouldn't hurt as bad.
(17:12):
But I mean, I I had it under disguise of like, yes,
I'm close with people, I'm so close to them, but
then they felt like not close to me at all.
That was my story. Yes, that was my story, and
and you nailed it. I mean, I think people want
to be needed. Um. When I consistently would ask my
friendships what can I do to be a better friend
to you? I would expect a list. I would expect
(17:32):
call more, text more, and instead they said need me more, Like, say,
what's going really going on in your life? Well that
is way harder than a list of two dues because
that is a huge risk. For the reasons you're saying.
I have been burned by people and gossiped about and
it's been used against me, and so why would I
continue to do that? It just didn't even feel helpful.
(17:53):
And so I've had to discipline myself to risk vulnerability
again with my friendships, and and in that have just
found it to be the thing that deepens those friendships
and actually heals my heart as well. Right, It's just
it takes such risks, you know. The thing I say
is to not be afraid to be a little needy.
And what I mean by that is I have a
(18:15):
friend that she's really good at calling me in the
middle of a cry. She'll call me and she's crying,
and I would never do that. I just my my
former self would never call someone in the middle of
the cry. I would call them the next day or
the next day. After I've stored it all out, I
can say it with great clarity about why I'm down,
and I've worked it all out and i feel positive
about it, and I've put a little bow on top
(18:36):
of it, right, like, I'm not going to call someone
while I'm crying. Yet when she calls me, when she's crying.
I feel so loved that she would risk that with me,
and that she would and I feel so happy that
she trusts me with what she's feeling. I don't feel bothered,
but I think in my mind, when I'm doing it
to someone else, I feel needy and like I'm bothering them.
(18:57):
I'm with you on the I want to be needed.
I read that chapter where you shared that very personal story.
I think I even earmarked it. It's chapter six safe.
It's called safe where you say I have lost friends
because I haven't done what I'm about to tell you
to do, and you that story. I think I can
be a little bit needy though, even though I wasn't
connecting with them on their level. So I can call
(19:19):
a friend when I'm crying, but then I feel like
they don't feel as though they could call me when
they need me. I wasn't open, I wasn't like somehow
part of me wasn't screaming, even though I thought I was, Hey,
call me when you're crying. I will do that to friends.
But then, for whatever reason, I somehow created a thing
where they didn't feel like they could come to me,
(19:41):
and I I'm just like that, come to me please,
like I'm begging you please come. Actually, Amy, that is
so precious. And I hope all your friends are listening
to this right now and hearing it, all of them,
because I always say to my kids, use your words
about things right like they're in a fight or they
have a misunderstanding, and I'm like, usual, what do you want?
Use your words? And I feel like that's what we
(20:02):
need to do as adults too. It's like, I think
that candid, beautiful conversation of you looking at a friend
of me, like, why don't you come to me? I
want you to come to me. I don't want to
hear about this three days later, because that's what my
friend Lindsey did for me. She basically said, Hey, you're
going to start telling me when something's wrong, and you're
gonna tell me when it's wrong in the middle of it,
(20:23):
not three days later. And I was like, I don't
want to and she said, you're gonna do it, and
she would just make me do it, and it trained me.
I mean, it literally was coaching to me of opening
up and and seeing the benefit of it. But I
think she had to use her words to help me
do that. And I had to use my words to
actually do it and to process why that was hard
for me. So I think one reason we all feel
(20:45):
so distant and isolated, and we think we're the only
ones feeling alone as we aren't using our words with
the people around us. We're not saying, you know, I
mean the awkward things. I genuinely believe the whole book
could have been called Awkward Conversations, because ultimately, it's like that,
that's what it takes. I mean, it takes awkwardly asking
someone you barely know to coffee. It takes awkwardly saying hey,
(21:07):
I would love to share with you, like what's really
going on in our marriage. It's say it takes awkwardly
saying hey, I would love for you to come over,
and my house is a mess and my kids are home,
but I'm just kind of feeling isolated tonight, like I
would love it if you came over tonight. It takes
awkwardly inviting people into your life and and stepping into theirs.
You know. And and I think that nobody taught us
(21:28):
in first grade. This is like we needed a class.
This is how you be a friend. And and I
promise you one of the things that would have taught
us is you awkwardly do things, You awkwardly say things.
You you hurt each other, you work it out, you
conflict resolved. But nobody ever taught us. And so I
don't think it's just you. I don't think it's just me.
I think we're all at this place of like, how
do we go deeper? But it feels so cumbersome and
(21:52):
prickly and awkward that we stop and resist it and
just kind of go back and watch Netflix. And I'm
just advocating for doing the awkward thing and saying, like
what you just said, it was so beautiful, and if
you are my friend, it would mean so much to
me that you felt that way. You know, Like I
hear those words from you, and I'm like, I love that,
and and I think any person close to you would
(22:13):
love to hear that. So, yeah, why don't we say
the hard things? Right? Why don't we say those things
to each other? I don't know. Yeah, well, because I
think instantly there's lies in my head where at one
point in time they may have been true because for
whatever reason, maybe I wasn't available. But either way, whatever
it was, if I'm aware of it now and I'm
actively working on it. It is awkward, that's it. It's
(22:36):
just awk. Even me talking about it right now. It
feels awkward because you're so right. But at the end
of the day, it's worth it and it is friendships,
and you're saying here and you have a whole book
based on that, like it is what we need. It's
the way God design us, and it's worth it. We
need these connections, so we just have to like forget
about it and be awkward and bring up even with
whether it's a neighbor or a best friend that you've
(22:58):
been friends with for a long time, have the awkward conversations.
Do you remember when Jennifer Lawrence was going out to
take up an award and she was she was she
was kind of new to the scene. I can't remember
if it was like during Hunger Games or what, but
(23:20):
she fell when she was going up to receive her awards.
She literally face planted. Do you remember this. I believe
at that moment was when the world fill in love
with Jennifer Lawrence. She was still really new. She just
got up and like laughed and I kind of brushed
it off, And I think that's got to be our
our mode of operation right here, like, because what you're
saying is there were times you weren't a good friend.
That's what you just said. Yes, absolutely, And I just
(23:43):
want to say it everybody. If you can't see and
you're just listening, you got all scratchy, like I'm just
I'm not trying to throw you under the bus, but
you were like itching your neck like that was hard
for you to admit. And I cannot tell you I
was scratching. My friend says, I scratched my face when
I get anxious, and I was scratching my face the
whole time I wrote the book because I'm not good
at this and it's so vulnerable. But that's how every
(24:05):
single person listening fields. No one has this on lockdown.
There are very few people that would say, you know
what I'm good at, I'm a great friend. Very very
few people. Okay, Well that goes back to the lines
that are in my head, which are that that she's
such a good friend, or this this friend of my
life is so amazing. I wish I could be a
friend like them. Or if I try to do this now,
(24:28):
they're they're gonna think, why is she even doing this now,
she's this is not the kind of friend she is.
But I love that we all have the opportunity to
grow and work and change if I if that weren't true,
I would be in so much trouble with this subject.
In fact, my first page of the book originally read
to all the people that I've heard and wounded and
(24:50):
that you can't believe I'm writing a book about friendship.
I'm so sorry, you know. And my my publisher was
wisely like, Hey, that's kind of dark and twisty, so
let's not open the whole book that way. You can
be vulnerable about it, but let's not put it in
the first page. But that's how I felt. I was
genuinely embarrassed that I was writing this book because there
would be so many people that would say she is
the worst friend, like I can't believe she's writing a
(25:11):
book about this. But I also would say to those people,
I also have grown in this. I've practiced this, I've
worked hard at this. I've disciplined myself to be someone
who says what I'm going through and who is vulnerable
in the moment. I've disciplined myself to initiate even when
I'd rather stay at home in my robe. I've disciplined
myself to make a new friend and awkwardly asked them
(25:33):
into my life and invite them into my you know,
kids lives. I've done this work, and it is worth it.
It is it is living. What is life If it
is not relationships, There's there's nothing else, like if we
have money, if we have success, if we have everything
else in the world, but we don't have relationships. Those
are the most unhappy people. So it truly is the
(25:55):
greatest thing from God that we have on earth. It
is people. And so we've got to figure this out
and get better at it. But I love what you're saying,
like we get too awkwardly humbly grow. When I just
read the whole book on audio book, what you do
at the very end is the last thing you do.
And I was a little embarrassed about parts of it
because it was so elementary. Nearly it was it was
almost one oh one, like how to have a deeper conversation,
(26:17):
how to ask a friend to coffee, how to I
literally put all that in there because I knew that
would be a barrier for some people, and I regretted
that I didn't have the first grade class. I was like,
some of this book is gonna be how to And
as I'm reading it out loud, the producer and the
other people on the call, I started giggling, and I
was like, gosh, I guess this feels kind of elementary.
(26:37):
I was almost embarrassed at my own words. And the
six year old woman that was producing said, Jenny, I'm
telling you I didn't know these things. It just changed
my perspective and it made me feel one hopeful because
the reason I knew to put them in the book
was I didn't know those things, you know, and that's
why I put it in. So it gave me hope
that none of us know how to do these things,
and maybe if we just all stumble awkwardly to each other,
(27:01):
there will be something likable about it. There will be
something vulnerable about it. And supposedly they say all the
research that that's what makes good friends is being vulnerable.
So that's our hope, so that they say we're all here. Uh.
You know you mentioned recording the audiobook as the final step.
I know in the book you wrote as you were
getting towards the end of completing it, you had a
(27:23):
panic attack. Yeah, so can you expand on that here? Yeah,
So the first chapter is actually the last chapter. I
wrote the first chapter just a few months ago, um
as I was finishing edits on the book, and I
got to a place where I had been writing and
editing most of the year and so, you know, it's
very isolating thing, and so I hadn't been with my people.
They kind of stopped calling, but yet I was writing
(27:45):
about them and in our close friendships. And then my
husband was angry with me, my sister got angry with me,
and I felt like, I don't even know who my
people are. I'm coming out of writing a book about
finding your people, and I think I might have lost
all of mine while I was doing it. And I
would say for weeks, this was growing in my mind
as as a truth, even though it wasn't. And I
(28:06):
ended up on my closet floor because I had had
a dream that felt so real where they not only
had they pulled back, but they they had gossiped about me.
They were hateful, and my mind was just spinning out
on you know, I can do that where you just
almost get crazy in your head. I just don't have
anyone and typically, like my old self would have felt
(28:29):
those things, I would have done my best to work
through those things. I may have mentioned it to my
husband in a a very surface level of what I was
actually feeling. But I woke up the morning after my
panic attack and the phone rang at like eight o'clock,
right after drop off, and it was one of my
best friends, and you know, and I remember seeing her name,
(28:49):
and you know how you are after a hard night
where you just wrestled and cried, and I just kind
of wanted to pull the covers over my head and
like go to sleep that morning and and not deal
with life. And I remember thinking, I have a choice
right now to answer this phone, and I have a
choice to tell her like here's where I am. And
so I answered the phone, and that night I said,
I need to tell you kind of what's been going
(29:10):
on in my head. And she said, okay, let's get
together tonight, me and Ashley with my other friend, and
we go together and talked for two or three hours,
and I just cried to them. And it was funny
that that night I had shared all of it. It
was so painfully hard. I want to be so honest
with everybody and just say like that is never easy
to do, and especially when you're doubting the friendship. I
(29:32):
just felt like the two of them had kind of
seen each other every day and I had been missing
for months, and it was super vulnerable and went against
everything in my body to say it. And at the
end of it, when she was dropping me off, Lindsay
hugged me and said, I want you to know I've
never felt closer to you than right now. And I
think there's something about the hard that actually makes all
(29:53):
the good. You know, it's the fights that actually deep
in a friendship. It's the conflict in the doubts that
bring the security. And when you say those things, so
it's all risky and people could hurt you, and they've
hurt me before in doing so. But but I also
think the thing we're craving is on the other side
of that. One of my big takeaways from our talk
(30:14):
right now is for sure well about the book, which
is inside the book so people can get it, but
is the different types of friendships and that you put
labels to them, like the Foxhole friend, because I think
that will be so freeing of any certain expectations and
that you have and and disappointments. Those friends are still
(30:34):
going to disappoint you for sure, just like you're going
to still disappoint others. But that's just huge. So I'm
thankful that you did that. Well. I go back, Amy
to what you were saying. You were looking at other
friends saying, oh, they're so good at that, and they're
so good. You weren't actually saying they're such a good friend.
You were actually saying they're good at something I'm not,
And so in your head they were a good friend
and you weren't. But the truth is they could look
(30:56):
at your life and say, Amy, so good at this.
And I think that's the freedom we have with each other,
is if we bring our strengths to the table and
let and our weaknesses right, and we be who we
can be for each other. It's just I hope that's
the feeling, is that that we realize we're all good
at something, and we're all we all have something to
bring to the table. Even though I'm not great at
being vulnerable, I'm growing in that, but I'm really good
(31:20):
at again creating experiences for people. And I just planned
a trip for a friend for her fourtieth birthday, and
I'm not good with details, but I'm great at thinking
of something fun that we all could do together, and
so I bring that to the table. And I'm good
at counsel and when you need something, I'll help you
figure it out. So I have those things that I
bring to the table, but plenty of ways that are
hard for me that I'm not great at. Well, thank
(31:42):
you for getting vulnerable and sharing with us. Since it
is the Four Things podcast Before you go, I'd love
to do four Things gratitude with you. I want to
get specific this time. You did it the last time
you were on, but just kind of whatever you were
thankful for that day. But if you could share a
book besides Find your People obviously that is the book
recommendation for today's episode, but something that you've read recently
(32:06):
that's encouraged you've inspired you, or just allowed you to
escape for a little bit because there's so much heaviness
in the world and a TV show on Instagram follow
and a drink so fun. Okay, a book is Atomic Habits.
I love it. A lot of people probably read it.
It just reframed for me how to live in the world,
(32:27):
especially after the pandemic. It just gave me new language
for restarting my life and working out and all these things,
rather than feeling defeated. It was just really helpful in that.
As far as an Instagram follow, something beautiful that I
love is um I just in fact, it was just
my most recent follow. It's called Pop Parties and it's
(32:48):
in Dallas, and it's just one of those things. I mean,
I literally last night was just scrolling through all of
how they decorate a tent. It just blows your mind.
I've never had a party like this, but one day
maybe I will. And then, okay, TV show, do you
know I got back into Alias? Do you remember Alias? Yeah?
I but I've never watched it. Should I I know
me either. I mean I remember being back on when
(33:10):
I was in college. I think you're really young. Anyway,
it is the greatest show. For about one or two seasons.
I loved it. Jennifer Garner is incredible in it. It It
was like kind of the original you know, bad a
woman like she just was amazing in it. Well, speaking
of Instagram follows those, and you bring her up? Do
you follow her on Instagram? She's hysterical. I love following her.
(33:31):
She does a lot of cooking and she has a catch.
There's a catch she. I was totally influenced by her
a couple of weeks ago and ordered this like hoodie
where you put your cat inside and then your cat
can like poke his head out. And she's great. She'll
read stories and just she's and her little cooking, her
awkward cooking in her kitchen. It's so cute. I know
we would all be her friend, I'm sure. And then
(33:51):
on my drink, oh my gosh, brown sugar oat make
at Starbucks, shawl is hard. It is hard to turn
that down every day. If I passed the Starbucks shaken
around sugar oat milk, okay, so shake so is it ic? Yes?
It is so good okay. And then that has espresso
in it or has two shots of espresso. It's not
too sweet, which I like. It's the best Star Bicks
(34:12):
drink there's ever been. They cannot cancel its special right now.
I'm like, you can't take that one away, so good. Well,
I'm glad you shared that one because that's a Star
Wars drink I have not had yet, so I will
be trying that well. Jenny, thank you so much. Find
your people. It's definitely going to be something I'm diving
into and sort of treating it like I already have
(34:33):
like notes in the margin, sort of like a little
a little workbook, and I just think that this is
a great thing I get it for. Maybe this is
something that you get for all your girlfriends, or send
a link to some girls that you think would enjoy
it and have your own little mini book club and
y'all can go through the awkwardness together. Yes, hey, I
will help you. I will start the awkward conversations for you. Okay, bye, Jenny,
(34:57):
thanks for having me. Amy
Okay, little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty,
but it's pretty beautiful than that. A little moth kicking four.
(00:32):
All right, sitting here across from my friend Jenny Allen.
She is our guest for today's episode. You're on the
podcast like two years ago, Jenny, when your last book
came out. But now you have another one which I'm
super excited to talk about today because I'm already obsessed
with it. It's called Find Your People, Building deep community
in a lonely world. But before we get into talking
(00:54):
about the book, I just want to read a little
bio about you, Jenny, which you're the founder of IF Gathering,
which I have gone to before. It's amazing, and you'll
have another one coming up right yes, March fourth and fifth,
and it's online. Everybody can watch it. Jenny is the
host of Made for This podcast and the book she
came on to talk about last time ended up being
a New York Times bestseller and it's called Get Out
(01:16):
of Your Head. And you have a lot of other
amazing things on your resume in addition to that. You're
a mom, you're a wife, you're a friend, which is
fitting because that's what this book is all about friendships. Yes,
And speaking of friends, another friend of the podcast is
actually someone that endorsed your book. And here's what Annie
f Downs had to say about find your people. Deep
(01:38):
community is the path to health, joy, success. Connection. Find
your people will inspire you, challenge you, and encourage you
toward the relationships you need and want. Oh that's so kind.
And Jenny, I pulled a quote from the book that
I want to mention just because I do this podcast
so that people don't feel alone. Whatever it is, maybe
(01:59):
just one person listening that needs to hear a particular episode,
and I share things for that same reason. And I'm
just so thankful you wrote this book. And the quote is,
do you ever wonder if maybe you're the only person
who feels this alone? You aren't. You aren't alone and
feeling alone. So I'm just thankful to know. And I'm
(02:21):
sure for others listening, if they happen to be feeling alone,
for them to be reminded that they're not alone. Well,
I think that's the hope in the weird, weird way.
I mean, it's bad news, right, we're all lonely three
and five people. Research says we're lonely prior to the pandemic.
So you can imagine now it's a good four to
five out of five that are feeling lonely, I would imagine,
(02:42):
And so we've got a crisis and so on one hand,
that's really sad. On the other hand, everybody needs a friend, right,
You're going to initiate with people that are also feeling
lonely and that hope to build this into their lives
as well. We seem like we have the ability to
be more connected than ever because we have phone, we
have FaceTime, we have Instagram, Facebook, like all the things
(03:04):
to connect that other people didn't have. Podcast that's another
perfect example. So why are we feeling so lonely with
all this quote unquote connection. So the way that we're
built is a hundred and fifty people are kind of
our maxive acquaintances. Well, most of us follow a way
more than that on Instagram, Facebook. Certainly our news stories
(03:25):
are coming from the ends of the earth. We're hearing
everybody's problems, right, but a hundred and fifties about what
we can handle. And that's just acquaintance knowledge. You know
a name, you know a problem, you know, Hey, this
is what's going on. We can handle about fifty people
to be part of our village are deeper community, which
means I would take you a castle role if I
found out your mom had cancer or something to where
(03:46):
I was reaching out to those fifty. I can't do
that for the hundred and fifty, but I can do
that for about fifty people I can. I can kind
of move into their lives on an occasional basis and
play a role. We only have margin for a daily
relationship with about five. That's that's how many were able
to like keep up with on a weekly daily basis. Well,
what social media has done is is basically made our
(04:08):
acquaintances so large, and we don't have any of the
inner circles. We don't have. We're not taking a cast
role to the neighbor when we find out they're going
through chemo because we're so exhausted from carrying the weight
of the entire earth. So we basically have compassion fatigue.
You know, we care about every problem that comes along,
or we try to, and then we don't have the
margin or the compassion or the time to help the
(04:30):
neighbor that really just needs us. So I think why
we feel disconnected and lonely is we've really broken the
system the way that it's existed since the beginning of time,
which was small villages of people. And ironically, from the research,
those numbers are exactly what would play out in a village.
Most villages are between fifty and a hundred and fifty
people today. If you walk into a little bitty town
(04:51):
in Italy, which I've done, and you go to this
little grocer and this little little bitty town that's not touristy,
me and my husband show up there, you walk in,
the whole grocery store stops and said, who are you?
What are you doing here? You know, because they know
each other, no, no strangers come in from the outside.
That's how eight percent of the world even lives today.
So they were in that is, living very independently from
(05:12):
each other. And I don't even mean that like we
don't have friends. I mean that we don't rub shoulders
with people. We know their names and we care about
and we build a relationship with My thesis is that
it's time we change that and that we notice the
village that that we've been placed in right around us,
and that might come from the Starbucks, that might come
from a local church. It might come from a soccer team,
(05:34):
that might come from an apartment complex, that might come
from a job coworking situation. But to start to look
at the village that you've been placed in, and how
can you begin to see these people as potential friends?
As you were researching the topic of loneliness, what a
scientist say about what loneliness is doing to our health,
to our well being. I mean, we're starting with all
(05:54):
the bad news. We've got a major problem, not just
in the numbers of people that feel lonely. But they say,
and again, when I say this in rooms full of people,
everybody cocks their head and starts googling to see if
I'm right, because they can't believe it. But I am right.
You can look it up. Basically that doctors are saying
that that loneliness and isolation is worse for your health
than obesity, smoking, or alcoholism and drinking too much. Like
(06:17):
it's worse than all those things. And so it's a
it's a crisis. If everybody is feeling lonely and isolated,
which we all are because of the pandemic, right all
of us, then we've got it affecting our health not
to mention our mental state. Anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts. Those
are all, I mean, unquestionably at the highest levels people
(06:37):
have seen in this generation, especially the younger generation coming.
So we know there's a problem. What is that problem?
And I truly believe it's that we've given up on
real life connection. And now I'm not talking even about
two to three best friends, although that is the goal
for all of us, and that's certainly a goal in
the book, but it's bigger than that. It's we need
the context of a village. We need older people to
(06:59):
tell us how to parent teenagers. We need younger people
to come into our lives because they are more available
and flexible on a Friday night and can come over
and play games with us and hang out with us
and help raise our kids and tell our kids, no,
don't do that right in front of us, because it
takes a village. And and then people that are single
need people to be around that have different problems than
(07:20):
them and and yet understand their problems. So I just
think we have been functioning looking for two to five
people that are exactly like us. And if we're married,
our hope is that their spouses then will be best
friends with, you know, our husband, and it's just not realistic.
It's it's literally not how anyone has ever lived. So
why do we think this is gonna work when it
obviously isn't. And so my hope is that we open
(07:42):
our eyes and see who's around us. Who's that person
that walks their dog in front of your house every
single day and you've never spoken to, and strike up
a conversation. Uh, some of the people that are reading
the book. Early one of the girls in this Facebook
group said, you know what I did today? She said,
I was at gymnastics with my little girl. I say
the same people every time, and today, instead of just
nodding and waving and then looking at my phone, I
(08:03):
talked to the woman next to me for thirty minutes.
We had the best conversation. At the end of it,
we decided to have game night with our husbands next week.
She said. We've been sitting next to each other for months,
looking at our phones next to each other. So my
hope is that it's almost like you put on glasses
to see the world differently, and instead of always running
errands by yourself, call a friend and go to Costco
and split split toilet paper. You know, like, let's take
(08:26):
this technology that we've been given in our generation and
start using it for good and let it be a
spark that starts connection rather than the screen we stare
out for seven seven hours a day. Since you mentioned
some people are reading it earlier, which I have an
early copy too, let's just say it's out February, just
to clarify when others want to get it. That's still
(08:47):
the same. That's the same. Yes, Okay, so February two,
and it's called Find Your People. And you know me
looking at you Jenny on Instagram or you know we
I live in Nashville, you live in Dallas. But you know,
in seeing you as the leader of a major organization
and surrounded by all these people and your family, I
(09:08):
would just think, oh, she's totally got this on lock.
Like she's good. She would never struggle with something like this.
So what was it like for you to deal with loneliness?
I mean I have different seasons in my life that
have been hard for different reasons. There have been times
that friends have quit me and there's reasons behind that
(09:28):
that are really hard, and there were very vulnerable to
write about. It was a lot of times always my fault.
And then there are times that, like I just moved
to Dallas about four and a half five years ago,
and I had to start completely from scratch pretty much
and make friends for the for the first time in
a long time. That was incredibly hard. I was a
pastor's wife for many years, and that's a whole lonely
(09:51):
thing where where people are friends with you, but they
also see you as playing a role in their lives
rather than just a friend. So I've had different seasons
where it's been hard for different reasons, but I would
say that the hardest has been is when I have
people in my life and I get hurt more than
when I've been completely lonely. Um. Somebody said the other day,
(10:12):
you know, I'm perfectly fine if I'm sitting by myself
with Jesus, like I don't have any problems, you know,
And it's true, because it's like, if you're just by
yourself in your house, like life's pretty good. You don't
nobody's bothering you, you're not bothering anybody else. But if
you get into relationships, you will get hurt, and you
probably will hurt someone else. And so there's just a
real issue of do I even want this, Like I
(10:34):
don't even know if this is worth it. And I
would say that probably is the biggest temptation and all
of us is just to say, you know what, I
have tried this and it doesn't work for me, and
yet it doesn't work for us not to have this
either and we are craving it. And so what does
it look like to say, you know what, I'm gonna
brave this. And I would say to someone, what if
five times you get rejected, because it does happen where
(10:57):
people don't want this or think they have it, or
they just don't have the capacity for it, and you
get rejected five times, But on that sixth time you
make one of your favorite people that you will be
best friends with till you die. That would be worth it,
Like you would deal with the rejection five times if
on the sixth try it resulted in a life long friendship,
not that it wouldn't be still full of complications, but
(11:20):
you would do it. And so that is my hope,
as though even though we're all tired, even though it
feels like I've tried this and it's it's gone poorly
for me, that we would, we would give it another
shot because we truly were built for this. Our bodies
do not function well, our emotions do not function well,
our minds do not function well without this, and so
(11:41):
we gotta fight for it. I mean, yeah, God designed
us for connection. Yes, yes, I find that Yeah, isolation
and I like being alone. I mean I have to
recover because I haven't a very extroverted job, but I
(12:05):
tend to lean more introverted, so I need my recovery time.
But then there's a time where my recovery time begins
to look unhealthy and I have to check myself because
that isolation will yes lead down a path where it's
not good for me to have too much of it.
And I'm self aware enough to know now through therapy
that I would lean way too into it and that
(12:27):
could be dangerous for me. And to be fair, I
think what you just described, Amy, is what all of
us are feeling. It is easier to get in our
robe and pick Netflix than to even attend the party
we said we were going to attend. Right, we are
socially tired, we are emotionally tired. I think something about
the pandemic took something out of us that it's just
we're not quite back and maybe we never will be
(12:49):
in the same way. I mean, just to speak to that.
What I've had to start doing. I believe this enough,
and what I hope the book will cause to happen
for people is that they'll believe it enough that they'll
just start saying yes to some things, not everything, because
you're right, we definitely still need downtime, not everything. I'm
not suggesting that at all, but I've noticed when it's
(13:10):
Netflix or a few friends where we're gonna grab, you know,
a late night drink and catch up, that I will
come home feeling more rested and energized by those few
friends than I do from just staying at home. And
I think that's what I hope people here is you
actually are craving this, and it actually does even for introverts.
Some level of connection is You're made for that and
(13:32):
you need it, and so it really does fill you up,
even if you also have to recover from it and
get some downtime. To what qualities do we need to
be looking for in these potential friends, well, in order
to have like this deep, meaningful friendship that you're speaking about, Well,
so one of the things I did in the book
was I laid out all the different types of friends
there are. Right, So there's challenging friends that will tell
(13:55):
you the truth. There's encouraging friends. There's there's foxhole friends
I call them, which is like they'll get in there
beside you and and work beside you, and clean out
your closet with you, or dream of a new project
with you, like they're just beside they're kind of sitting
next to you friends. And then you have the fun
friend that literally is always initiating something. But the reason
I put all those types of friends in there is
(14:16):
because what we tend to do is we expect or
need or want two to three people to play all
those roles in our lives. So we miss potential friendships
and people that might make us crazy, like our mother. Right, Like,
we may feel like my mom makes me crazy, but
really she's actually probably a good friend to you. Not
all moms by any means, but a lot of moms
have been beside you a lot of your life, have
(14:37):
to have great knowledge of you. They might not be
good at this, but they are good at this, and
and and so we tend to just look for three
people that are just like us in the same life stage,
and we need them to be fun, take initiative, they
need to organize things well, they need to do all
these things or we're disappointed in them. And I hope
in putting the different categories of people is to go,
you know what, Yes, everyone's going to disappoint you, so
(15:00):
let's just all agree. I will disappoint you, you will
disappoint me. We all disappoint each other. But you know
what I'm good at. I'm good at being fun. I'm
really good at creating an experience in a memory, So
I'm going to play that role in my friendship's lives.
I'm not good at remembering your birthday. I'm just not.
I always forget birthdays. So my other friend, she never
forgets a birthday. There is a card first thing in
(15:22):
the morning on my doorstep. But if I get angry
at my fun friend that doesn't remember my birthday because
she doesn't remember my birthday, then I'm gonna be stuck
every single year. I'm gonna either withdrawal, like whatever. I
just think we need to see have a lot more grace,
expect people to disappoint us, and then see that a
lot of those needs and desires we have are being
met by a bigger circle of people than just your
(15:44):
tightest two to three people, and then we end up
with more of a village, which is my goal of
the book, than just two to three besties. Hopefully you
have that too, But we were never meant to have
all of our relational needs met by two to three people.
And so my hope is that we see the our
friendship pool and our relational pool as bigger than just
(16:05):
two to three people in our same life stage. So
we look for all kinds of things and we appreciate
what people bring to the table rather than always being disappointed.
I love that so much, and I think that's huge.
That's something that you know, the friend may need to
hear or you may need to hear for yourself, and
like have that reminder because I think sometimes we have
these expectations on people that are not going to be
(16:27):
never gonna be met. Then there's resentment, yeah, and you
could be sad about it or just go, you know what, Oh,
I'm gonna let everybody down to right there, there's that
reality of and then when you function in that kind
of grace with each other, it breathes oxygen into relationships
that I think we desperately need right now especially, And
so what about ways to form these friendships or they're
like ways to take relationships to a deeper level, like
(16:51):
once you've got them in their little category of what
type of friend they are, but are there things we
can be doing to be proactive? I'm asking specifically for
myself because I spent many years of my life up
until the last few realizing I was avoidant in connection
and I just kept most people at a distance because
if they hurt me, then it wouldn't hurt as bad.
(17:12):
But I mean, I I had it under disguise of like, yes,
I'm close with people, I'm so close to them, but
then they felt like not close to me at all.
That was my story. Yes, that was my story, and
and you nailed it. I mean, I think people want
to be needed. Um. When I consistently would ask my
friendships what can I do to be a better friend
to you? I would expect a list. I would expect
(17:32):
call more, text more, and instead they said need me more, Like, say,
what's going really going on in your life? Well that
is way harder than a list of two dues because
that is a huge risk. For the reasons you're saying.
I have been burned by people and gossiped about and
it's been used against me, and so why would I
continue to do that? It just didn't even feel helpful.
(17:53):
And so I've had to discipline myself to risk vulnerability
again with my friendships, and and in that have just
found it to be the thing that deepens those friendships
and actually heals my heart as well. Right, It's just
it takes such risks, you know. The thing I say
is to not be afraid to be a little needy.
And what I mean by that is I have a
(18:15):
friend that she's really good at calling me in the
middle of a cry. She'll call me and she's crying,
and I would never do that. I just my my
former self would never call someone in the middle of
the cry. I would call them the next day or
the next day. After I've stored it all out, I
can say it with great clarity about why I'm down,
and I've worked it all out and i feel positive
about it, and I've put a little bow on top
(18:36):
of it, right, like, I'm not going to call someone
while I'm crying. Yet when she calls me, when she's crying.
I feel so loved that she would risk that with me,
and that she would and I feel so happy that
she trusts me with what she's feeling. I don't feel bothered,
but I think in my mind, when I'm doing it
to someone else, I feel needy and like I'm bothering them.
(18:57):
I'm with you on the I want to be needed.
I read that chapter where you shared that very personal story.
I think I even earmarked it. It's chapter six safe.
It's called safe where you say I have lost friends
because I haven't done what I'm about to tell you
to do, and you that story. I think I can
be a little bit needy though, even though I wasn't
connecting with them on their level. So I can call
(19:19):
a friend when I'm crying, but then I feel like
they don't feel as though they could call me when
they need me. I wasn't open, I wasn't like somehow
part of me wasn't screaming, even though I thought I was, Hey,
call me when you're crying. I will do that to friends.
But then, for whatever reason, I somehow created a thing
where they didn't feel like they could come to me,
(19:41):
and I I'm just like that, come to me please,
like I'm begging you please come. Actually, Amy, that is
so precious. And I hope all your friends are listening
to this right now and hearing it, all of them,
because I always say to my kids, use your words
about things right like they're in a fight or they
have a misunderstanding, and I'm like, usual, what do you want?
Use your words? And I feel like that's what we
(20:02):
need to do as adults too. It's like, I think
that candid, beautiful conversation of you looking at a friend
of me, like, why don't you come to me? I
want you to come to me. I don't want to
hear about this three days later, because that's what my
friend Lindsey did for me. She basically said, Hey, you're
going to start telling me when something's wrong, and you're
gonna tell me when it's wrong in the middle of it,
(20:23):
not three days later. And I was like, I don't
want to and she said, you're gonna do it, and
she would just make me do it, and it trained me.
I mean, it literally was coaching to me of opening
up and and seeing the benefit of it. But I
think she had to use her words to help me
do that. And I had to use my words to
actually do it and to process why that was hard
for me. So I think one reason we all feel
(20:45):
so distant and isolated, and we think we're the only
ones feeling alone as we aren't using our words with
the people around us. We're not saying, you know, I
mean the awkward things. I genuinely believe the whole book
could have been called Awkward Conversations, because ultimately, it's like that,
that's what it takes. I mean, it takes awkwardly asking
someone you barely know to coffee. It takes awkwardly saying hey,
(21:07):
I would love to share with you, like what's really
going on in our marriage. It's say it takes awkwardly
saying hey, I would love for you to come over,
and my house is a mess and my kids are home,
but I'm just kind of feeling isolated tonight, like I
would love it if you came over tonight. It takes
awkwardly inviting people into your life and and stepping into theirs.
You know. And and I think that nobody taught us
(21:28):
in first grade. This is like we needed a class.
This is how you be a friend. And and I
promise you one of the things that would have taught
us is you awkwardly do things, You awkwardly say things.
You you hurt each other, you work it out, you
conflict resolved. But nobody ever taught us. And so I
don't think it's just you. I don't think it's just me.
I think we're all at this place of like, how
do we go deeper? But it feels so cumbersome and
(21:52):
prickly and awkward that we stop and resist it and
just kind of go back and watch Netflix. And I'm
just advocating for doing the awkward thing and saying, like
what you just said, it was so beautiful, and if
you are my friend, it would mean so much to
me that you felt that way. You know, Like I
hear those words from you, and I'm like, I love that,
and and I think any person close to you would
(22:13):
love to hear that. So, yeah, why don't we say
the hard things? Right? Why don't we say those things
to each other? I don't know. Yeah, well, because I
think instantly there's lies in my head where at one
point in time they may have been true because for
whatever reason, maybe I wasn't available. But either way, whatever
it was, if I'm aware of it now and I'm
actively working on it. It is awkward, that's it. It's
(22:36):
just awk. Even me talking about it right now. It
feels awkward because you're so right. But at the end
of the day, it's worth it and it is friendships,
and you're saying here and you have a whole book
based on that, like it is what we need. It's
the way God design us, and it's worth it. We
need these connections, so we just have to like forget
about it and be awkward and bring up even with
whether it's a neighbor or a best friend that you've
(22:58):
been friends with for a long time, have the awkward conversations.
Do you remember when Jennifer Lawrence was going out to
take up an award and she was she was she
was kind of new to the scene. I can't remember
if it was like during Hunger Games or what, but
(23:20):
she fell when she was going up to receive her awards.
She literally face planted. Do you remember this. I believe
at that moment was when the world fill in love
with Jennifer Lawrence. She was still really new. She just
got up and like laughed and I kind of brushed
it off, And I think that's got to be our
our mode of operation right here, like, because what you're
saying is there were times you weren't a good friend.
That's what you just said. Yes, absolutely, And I just
(23:43):
want to say it everybody. If you can't see and
you're just listening, you got all scratchy, like I'm just
I'm not trying to throw you under the bus, but
you were like itching your neck like that was hard
for you to admit. And I cannot tell you I
was scratching. My friend says, I scratched my face when
I get anxious, and I was scratching my face the
whole time I wrote the book because I'm not good
at this and it's so vulnerable. But that's how every
(24:05):
single person listening fields. No one has this on lockdown.
There are very few people that would say, you know
what I'm good at, I'm a great friend. Very very
few people. Okay, Well that goes back to the lines
that are in my head, which are that that she's
such a good friend, or this this friend of my
life is so amazing. I wish I could be a
friend like them. Or if I try to do this now,
(24:28):
they're they're gonna think, why is she even doing this now,
she's this is not the kind of friend she is.
But I love that we all have the opportunity to
grow and work and change if I if that weren't true,
I would be in so much trouble with this subject.
In fact, my first page of the book originally read
to all the people that I've heard and wounded and
(24:50):
that you can't believe I'm writing a book about friendship.
I'm so sorry, you know. And my my publisher was
wisely like, Hey, that's kind of dark and twisty, so
let's not open the whole book that way. You can
be vulnerable about it, but let's not put it in
the first page. But that's how I felt. I was
genuinely embarrassed that I was writing this book because there
would be so many people that would say she is
the worst friend, like I can't believe she's writing a
(25:11):
book about this. But I also would say to those people,
I also have grown in this. I've practiced this, I've
worked hard at this. I've disciplined myself to be someone
who says what I'm going through and who is vulnerable
in the moment. I've disciplined myself to initiate even when
I'd rather stay at home in my robe. I've disciplined
myself to make a new friend and awkwardly asked them
(25:33):
into my life and invite them into my you know,
kids lives. I've done this work, and it is worth it.
It is it is living. What is life If it
is not relationships, There's there's nothing else, like if we
have money, if we have success, if we have everything
else in the world, but we don't have relationships. Those
are the most unhappy people. So it truly is the
(25:55):
greatest thing from God that we have on earth. It
is people. And so we've got to figure this out
and get better at it. But I love what you're saying,
like we get too awkwardly humbly grow. When I just
read the whole book on audio book, what you do
at the very end is the last thing you do.
And I was a little embarrassed about parts of it
because it was so elementary. Nearly it was it was
almost one oh one, like how to have a deeper conversation,
(26:17):
how to ask a friend to coffee, how to I
literally put all that in there because I knew that
would be a barrier for some people, and I regretted
that I didn't have the first grade class. I was like,
some of this book is gonna be how to And
as I'm reading it out loud, the producer and the
other people on the call, I started giggling, and I
was like, gosh, I guess this feels kind of elementary.
(26:37):
I was almost embarrassed at my own words. And the
six year old woman that was producing said, Jenny, I'm
telling you I didn't know these things. It just changed
my perspective and it made me feel one hopeful because
the reason I knew to put them in the book
was I didn't know those things, you know, and that's
why I put it in. So it gave me hope
that none of us know how to do these things,
and maybe if we just all stumble awkwardly to each other,
(27:01):
there will be something likable about it. There will be
something vulnerable about it. And supposedly they say all the
research that that's what makes good friends is being vulnerable.
So that's our hope, so that they say we're all here. Uh.
You know you mentioned recording the audiobook as the final step.
I know in the book you wrote as you were
getting towards the end of completing it, you had a
(27:23):
panic attack. Yeah, so can you expand on that here? Yeah,
So the first chapter is actually the last chapter. I
wrote the first chapter just a few months ago, um
as I was finishing edits on the book, and I
got to a place where I had been writing and
editing most of the year and so, you know, it's
very isolating thing, and so I hadn't been with my people.
They kind of stopped calling, but yet I was writing
(27:45):
about them and in our close friendships. And then my
husband was angry with me, my sister got angry with me,
and I felt like, I don't even know who my
people are. I'm coming out of writing a book about
finding your people, and I think I might have lost
all of mine while I was doing it. And I
would say for weeks, this was growing in my mind
as as a truth, even though it wasn't. And I
(28:06):
ended up on my closet floor because I had had
a dream that felt so real where they not only
had they pulled back, but they they had gossiped about me.
They were hateful, and my mind was just spinning out
on you know, I can do that where you just
almost get crazy in your head. I just don't have
anyone and typically, like my old self would have felt
(28:29):
those things, I would have done my best to work
through those things. I may have mentioned it to my
husband in a a very surface level of what I was
actually feeling. But I woke up the morning after my
panic attack and the phone rang at like eight o'clock,
right after drop off, and it was one of my
best friends, and you know, and I remember seeing her name,
(28:49):
and you know how you are after a hard night
where you just wrestled and cried, and I just kind
of wanted to pull the covers over my head and
like go to sleep that morning and and not deal
with life. And I remember thinking, I have a choice
right now to answer this phone, and I have a
choice to tell her like here's where I am. And
so I answered the phone, and that night I said,
I need to tell you kind of what's been going
(29:10):
on in my head. And she said, okay, let's get
together tonight, me and Ashley with my other friend, and
we go together and talked for two or three hours,
and I just cried to them. And it was funny
that that night I had shared all of it. It
was so painfully hard. I want to be so honest
with everybody and just say like that is never easy
to do, and especially when you're doubting the friendship. I
(29:32):
just felt like the two of them had kind of
seen each other every day and I had been missing
for months, and it was super vulnerable and went against
everything in my body to say it. And at the
end of it, when she was dropping me off, Lindsay
hugged me and said, I want you to know I've
never felt closer to you than right now. And I
think there's something about the hard that actually makes all
(29:53):
the good. You know, it's the fights that actually deep
in a friendship. It's the conflict in the doubts that
bring the security. And when you say those things, so
it's all risky and people could hurt you, and they've
hurt me before in doing so. But but I also
think the thing we're craving is on the other side
of that. One of my big takeaways from our talk
(30:14):
right now is for sure well about the book, which
is inside the book so people can get it, but
is the different types of friendships and that you put
labels to them, like the Foxhole friend, because I think
that will be so freeing of any certain expectations and
that you have and and disappointments. Those friends are still
(30:34):
going to disappoint you for sure, just like you're going
to still disappoint others. But that's just huge. So I'm
thankful that you did that. Well. I go back, Amy
to what you were saying. You were looking at other
friends saying, oh, they're so good at that, and they're
so good. You weren't actually saying they're such a good friend.
You were actually saying they're good at something I'm not,
And so in your head they were a good friend
and you weren't. But the truth is they could look
(30:56):
at your life and say, Amy, so good at this.
And I think that's the freedom we have with each other,
is if we bring our strengths to the table and
let and our weaknesses right, and we be who we
can be for each other. It's just I hope that's
the feeling, is that that we realize we're all good
at something, and we're all we all have something to
bring to the table. Even though I'm not great at
being vulnerable, I'm growing in that, but I'm really good
(31:20):
at again creating experiences for people. And I just planned
a trip for a friend for her fourtieth birthday, and
I'm not good with details, but I'm great at thinking
of something fun that we all could do together, and
so I bring that to the table. And I'm good
at counsel and when you need something, I'll help you
figure it out. So I have those things that I
bring to the table, but plenty of ways that are
hard for me that I'm not great at. Well, thank
(31:42):
you for getting vulnerable and sharing with us. Since it
is the Four Things podcast Before you go, I'd love
to do four Things gratitude with you. I want to
get specific this time. You did it the last time
you were on, but just kind of whatever you were
thankful for that day. But if you could share a
book besides Find your People obviously that is the book
recommendation for today's episode, but something that you've read recently
(32:06):
that's encouraged you've inspired you, or just allowed you to
escape for a little bit because there's so much heaviness
in the world and a TV show on Instagram follow
and a drink so fun. Okay, a book is Atomic Habits.
I love it. A lot of people probably read it.
It just reframed for me how to live in the world,
(32:27):
especially after the pandemic. It just gave me new language
for restarting my life and working out and all these things,
rather than feeling defeated. It was just really helpful in that.
As far as an Instagram follow, something beautiful that I
love is um I just in fact, it was just
my most recent follow. It's called Pop Parties and it's
(32:48):
in Dallas, and it's just one of those things. I mean,
I literally last night was just scrolling through all of
how they decorate a tent. It just blows your mind.
I've never had a party like this, but one day
maybe I will. And then, okay, TV show, do you
know I got back into Alias? Do you remember Alias? Yeah?
I but I've never watched it. Should I I know
me either. I mean I remember being back on when
(33:10):
I was in college. I think you're really young. Anyway,
it is the greatest show. For about one or two seasons.
I loved it. Jennifer Garner is incredible in it. It It
was like kind of the original you know, bad a
woman like she just was amazing in it. Well, speaking
of Instagram follows those, and you bring her up? Do
you follow her on Instagram? She's hysterical. I love following her.
(33:31):
She does a lot of cooking and she has a catch.
There's a catch she. I was totally influenced by her
a couple of weeks ago and ordered this like hoodie
where you put your cat inside and then your cat
can like poke his head out. And she's great. She'll
read stories and just she's and her little cooking, her
awkward cooking in her kitchen. It's so cute. I know
we would all be her friend, I'm sure. And then
(33:51):
on my drink, oh my gosh, brown sugar oat make
at Starbucks, shawl is hard. It is hard to turn
that down every day. If I passed the Starbucks shaken
around sugar oat milk, okay, so shake so is it ic? Yes?
It is so good okay. And then that has espresso
in it or has two shots of espresso. It's not
too sweet, which I like. It's the best Star Bicks
(34:12):
drink there's ever been. They cannot cancel its special right now.
I'm like, you can't take that one away, so good. Well,
I'm glad you shared that one because that's a Star
Wars drink I have not had yet, so I will
be trying that well. Jenny, thank you so much. Find
your people. It's definitely going to be something I'm diving
into and sort of treating it like I already have
(34:33):
like notes in the margin, sort of like a little
a little workbook, and I just think that this is
a great thing I get it for. Maybe this is
something that you get for all your girlfriends, or send
a link to some girls that you think would enjoy
it and have your own little mini book club and
y'all can go through the awkwardness together. Yes, hey, I
will help you. I will start the awkward conversations for you. Okay, bye, Jenny,
(34:57):
thanks for having me. Amy
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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