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42: Friendship That Changes You: Showing Up Through Life’s Biggest Transitions · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:26
  Polly Mertens: hey, superstars, welcome back poly here and sam pruitt.
• 0:30
  Polly Mertens: What's up, beautiful humans hey, you guys, we are in, we are so excited by something that we both experienced recently and it just hit a hit, a chord for both of us, and this podcast is called friendships and the power of unconditional love, and we want to say and adventure, side note, side note, which we love those two words very much so, and this is based on.
• 0:53
  Polly Mertens: You saw the other night a movie called will and harper which, if you guys have not seen it, is a beautiful documentary following will um farrell and his dear friend, formerly andrew steel, now harper steel, um across the country for 14 days I think it was 16 days or something and the journey that they took as and maybe you can embellish on this um, the whole way to help him come out as a trans man or woman, her, yeah, making that transition and being public about it, and you did a great job of explaining it to me when you told me about the movie.
• 1:33
  Polly Mertens: but go ahead.
• 1:33
  Polly Mertens: What was this movie about?
• 1:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, it is so good.
• 1:37
  Samantha Pruitt: It's on Netflix currently, fyi, it's a must-see.
• 1:41
  Samantha Pruitt: It's an absolute must-see.
• 1:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Raw humanity in its most beautiful form, so inspiring.
• 1:49
  Samantha Pruitt: So yeah, will Ferrell, who of course is a comedian, and Harper they worked together for many, many years writing comedy, creating comedy film, all kinds of stuff.
• 2:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So really dear friends, with a lifetime of work and shared experiences together.
• 2:07
  Samantha Pruitt: And Harper makes the very bold, courageous and critical decision to become a woman, to transition from male to female and be her true self.
• 2:23
  Samantha Pruitt: And so out of that, of course, comes the question of what will happen to my friendships.
• 2:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Will they still exist?
• 2:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Will they be the same, will they be different?
• 2:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Will they remain intact as I become my true self and not the self that was formerly known?
• 2:40
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, through so many, many years with these other people, will Ferrell being a dear friend.
• 2:45
  Samantha Pruitt: You know there's an email that sent from Harper sharing this news, and Will, of course, responded yes, I absolutely support and accept whatever your decisions are.
• 2:59
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm there for you, but then time passes and they haven't reconnected.
• 3:03
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm there for you, but then time passes and they haven't reconnected, they haven't really had conversations and had more shared experiences, as Harper is now a woman living in the world, and so this story is so incredibly beautiful because they are so honest and I know it's being filmed, but still like it's so raw how this thing is shot, created in the moments that are shared.
• 3:28
  Samantha Pruitt: And, of course, they decide to do this as they drive across the country, which is also insane for anybody to do especially two friends, Polly and I, are all about these crazy adventures, these road trips, and, because Harper had this past life of this was a big part of when she was a he, how he experienced the world and how he really embraced the United States of America.
• 3:53
  Samantha Pruitt: So if they did it together now, what would it be like?
• 3:57
  Samantha Pruitt: How would it feel?
• 3:58
  Samantha Pruitt: What would the experience be, and would Harper, now a woman, be accepted and feel safe?
• 4:04
  Samantha Pruitt: And so they go on this big journey together.
• 4:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my God, it's really exquisite.
• 4:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, at the core of it is what you and I are going to talk about today spark this conversation for ourselves and we want to share it with our audience about friendship, unconditional love, yeah yeah, you know, and I think, and we're just going to give away some of the movie, so we can't help it.
• 4:29
  Polly Mertens: So if you haven't watched it, you may want to come back and listen to this after you've watched it, because we can't help it.
• 4:34
  Polly Mertens: We're just going to talk about stuff that they say or hear or got out of it.
• 4:37
  Polly Mertens: So if you haven't watched it and you don't like you know the spoilers then then don't listen, come back.
• 4:43
  Samantha Pruitt: But or or if you see the trailer and you think that's not a movie for me because part of you is closed-minded, then we actually want you to listen to this podcast, open your damn mind and heart and then watch the movie.
• 5:00
  Polly Mertens: So either way, yeah, and so maybe you're curious, like we were.
• 5:03
  Polly Mertens: Well, I didn't even know about this movie.
• 5:03
  Polly Mertens: And then you said you got to watch this movie and I way, yeah, and so maybe you're curious, like we were.
• 5:04
  Polly Mertens: Well, I didn't even know about this movie.
• 5:05
  Polly Mertens: And then you said you got to watch this movie and I was like, okay, and it came at the perfect time.
• 5:09
  Polly Mertens: You know, Friday, Friday evening, I was looking for something just chill, unwind.
• 5:14
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh, that looks nice.
• 5:15
  Polly Mertens: You know Will Ferrell, I enjoy him.
• 5:16
  Polly Mertens: You know this could be fun or whatever, and you know, and then it just turned into this rich tapestry of their wonderful friendship and the yeah, so much.
• 5:32
  Polly Mertens: So, um, if you have not seen it, um, I hope you will stay open-minded.
• 5:34
  Polly Mertens: It's not a hundred.
• 5:35
  Polly Mertens: It's not like overly about, uh, transgenderism, it's not like politicky or anything like that.
• 5:41
  Polly Mertens: It's this love of these two people and how one supports and stands by the other and is willing to fucking get in the car.
• 5:48
  Polly Mertens: Well, first, get in a plane, fly across the country, meet him on the East Coast, drive in a car for two plus weeks, be filmed and experience all these, you know, middle America kinds of interactions and have it all out there in the world, and what a gift I think this is to all of us to get to witness right.
• 6:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 6:10
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 6:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And you know, going back again to that core of the story and our story today, this idea, concept, this feeling, this experience of unconditional love in a friendship, it is what keeps us alive.
• 6:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Really, we could live without food and without water even for quite a long time, and with a lot of things you know, not oxygen, obviously but you cannot live without connection to another human or multiple humans in this way, and I guess I would clarify that.
• 6:51
  Polly Mertens: It's like there's some sustenance and then there's living, and you and I are about living and thriving and, like you know, soaking the marrow of life out.
• 7:01
  Polly Mertens: And so one of the things I feel like I've learned in my exploration of my gratitude journaling and process is I'm not grateful for the car that I drive.
• 7:12
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I am, you know, like loosely, but like that's not the number one, two or three thing that when I do my gratitude journaling and I go into my heart and I imagine something that was precious or touched me.
• 7:24
  Polly Mertens: It's not the time I bought my car or I, you know, bought a piece of clothing or an item or something.
• 7:30
  Polly Mertens: It's like those moments that just capture us and take our breath away.
• 7:35
  Polly Mertens: Someone says something to us, or the look in their eye, or the hug that you get, or just being witness, as you, you know, come out.
• 7:43
  Polly Mertens: I mean, this is a very sensitive topic and there's a lot of fear and things like that.
• 7:48
  Polly Mertens: So those beautiful humans that come into our life and we create this interwoven, I think it's like a web of friendships that some last, for you know, days, weeks, years, and some last our lifetime, and they're a part of us, like these experiences, like road trips or working together for years, or raising kids together, or being neighbors or being in an intimate relationship, or just you know, friends that you grew up with, and you visit them years, decades later and you can pick up the conversation like it was yesterday.
• 8:23
  Polly Mertens: It's like a part of them goes with us right, absolutely.
• 8:29
  Samantha Pruitt: They become a fabric in our cellular being right and we become a fabric in theirs.
• 8:36
  Samantha Pruitt: It's part of who we are Like.
• 8:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Our friendship is part of who we are as individuals.
• 8:42
  Samantha Pruitt: The fact that we have this friendship is part of who we are Like.
• 8:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Our friendship is part of who we are as individuals.
• 8:44
  Samantha Pruitt: The fact that we have this friendship is part of our personal development into our full selves, and every deep quality relationship, unconditional relationship, is that and specifically friendships.
• 8:59
  Polly Mertens: I think some people are blessed to have that kind of rich tapestry in the family of origin and not many of us are.
• 9:11
  Polly Mertens: I don't know too many people that have, I would say, true, unconditional love pouring the family that we grew up in is there to take that, you know, lumpy piece of clay that was us when we were born and begin to help us mold and form and shape us to meet societal expectations and cultural norms and what's acceptable in that family unit.
• 9:38
  Polly Mertens: Right, you know, be home by this hour or get good grades or whatever, you know, don't hit your sister.
• 9:44
  Polly Mertens: So it's like those little things that they spend a lot of time indoctrinating us to is a way to help us be, you know, able to survive in the world.
• 9:55
  Polly Mertens: Thank gosh, you know, depending on the degree of how good of a job they did.
• 9:59
  Polly Mertens: You know some people are, but I think we go out into the world and then sometimes we unpack and crack open that shell and discover the way that they molded us isn't who we see ourselves as, or who we're not meant to be, or we don't fit the norms that were given to us by the country of origin, the family of origin, the culture that we grew up in the religion that was given to us and stuff, and it's about cracking that open and finding out who we are.
• 10:26
  Polly Mertens: Sometimes through our friendships, it's like these are my people, right.
• 10:31
  Samantha Pruitt: And really, what does it mean to have an unconditional loving friendship?
• 10:35
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, what does unconditional mean?
• 10:41
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I should have looked that up.
• 10:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Dang it Right.
• 10:43
  Polly Mertens: Okay, you don't have a definition to that Move that shit real fast.
• 10:47
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, keep going, yeah, but we can express it, at least in our own way right now, through saying what we mean by that and what we've experienced, and what we hope that all of our listeners have experienced in some way shape or form, is that other human being who isn't trying to help you, you know, turn into, you know a fully developed human, or, you know, make you this or make you that or influence you in this way, or, you know, need something from you in this other way, Like there's no strings attached, Like our friendship is there because it's pure fucking magic.
• 11:28
  Samantha Pruitt: We found each other through some you know, sometimes it's happenstance and sometimes it's, you know, intentional but and in being in each other's lives, we just are there for each other and in that way, that unconditional way, we allow ourselves also to be fully seen, experienced, accepted, right.
• 11:56
  Samantha Pruitt: We don't come to the table with some kind of agenda or a need or a particular even like.
• 12:03
  Samantha Pruitt: This is what has to happen when we're together.
• 12:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Expectations, all of that's dropped, you know.
• 12:11
  Polly Mertens: so the definition is like there's there's no conditions, like it's not if this, then I'll be your friend.
• 12:17
  Polly Mertens: It's like it's unconditional, it's like I'm your friend, you know, and I mean bar, you know horrible things, whatever, horrible things, whatever.
• 12:24
  Polly Mertens: But like yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:25
  Polly Mertens: It's like got it, you know.
• 12:26
  Polly Mertens: And so it says um, devoid of any qualifications or disguise or adornment.
• 12:32
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like fucking raw and real it's like do your crazy shit and I'll be over here laughing watching you.
• 12:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Loving it and what we've talked about over and over is how that unconditional friendship for us and for some of our other deep friendships we have, like this, have been born out of experiences, aka adventures.
• 13:01
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, right, yeah, totally.
• 13:04
  Samantha Pruitt: And share a few of your stories there and how adventures seeded or solidified these unconditional friendships for you Well.
• 13:13
  Polly Mertens: I think two things, as we were talking about, you know, this idea and bringing this concept and this topic and this beautiful movie to you guys is so I've been in a lot of women's groups over the years and I have this one women's group that we started almost 10 years ago and I think there's five of us that were core One or two maybe came and went, but five that are still core and we met every month for like four years and it started out as a business.
• 13:43
  Polly Mertens: We were all business women leaders, business owners type thing to help each other in business, oh and in personal.
• 13:50
  Polly Mertens: And then over the years, you know, those businesses transitioned COVID, whatever, you know, things changed like that.
• 13:57
  Polly Mertens: We still kept a friendship and we do things together weddings together, trips together, retreats, you know and we just want to spend rich time together.
• 14:06
  Polly Mertens: You know we come back together.
• 14:09
  Polly Mertens: And then I think of you and I last year having the opportunity to go on our first backpacking trip together and we lovingly were hosted by Mandy who welcomed us into the wilderness in our first backpacking and we got to experience that with her who, if you don't know, mandy was with us and she did take her life last year and that was part of the instigation for this podcast.
• 14:35
  Polly Mertens: But I would say that she's still with you and I you know like she carries on with you and I A part of her touched us because of that experience together carries on with you and I.
• 14:44
  Samantha Pruitt: A part of her touched us because of that experience together.
• 14:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, because in that experience and obviously neither of us we knew there was some stuff going on and that was part of the reason she was motivated to be with us.
• 14:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Out in the wilderness is look for healing and solace and friendship.
• 14:57
  Samantha Pruitt: But we didn't know the depths of her despair at that time.
• 15:02
  Samantha Pruitt: But in our time together, that experience we went through and, mind you, it's only three days in the wilderness, but the amount of unconditional love and support we had for one another over those miles and mountains and the church and all of the craziness, will forever, forever.
• 15:25
  Samantha Pruitt: It changed all three of us and will forever be with us.
• 15:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Because, again, it's that fabric weaving our lives together through these shared experiences and being willing to be raw, open, exposed, imperfect.
• 15:41
  Samantha Pruitt: All of it.
• 15:42
  Samantha Pruitt: All of it, it's so good and we have those experiences.
• 15:47
  Samantha Pruitt: All of it, it's so good and we have those experiences, you and I, through road trips with people, with traveling experiences, with just a lifetime of whatever shenanigans.
• 16:05
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm thinking of a good friend of mine right now who is currently in a cancer battle.
• 16:06
  Samantha Pruitt: He has a dear, dear friend and in communicating with him and now I'm communicating through his daughter so she can share audio and photographs and different things, so we can stay connected as he battles for his life, literally.
• 16:17
  Samantha Pruitt: I was reflecting on so many adventures he and I had together.
• 16:22
  Samantha Pruitt: In one particular, we did rim to rim to rim of the Grand Canyon.
• 16:26
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean epic, crazy shit.
• 16:28
  Samantha Pruitt: And there's many of those things that he and I shared over the course of our life together that, just like he's in my cellular being.
• 16:40
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean it's just unbelievable and there are so many instances that we all have like this and opportunities to create this.
• 16:49
  Samantha Pruitt: You know we willingly seek these experiences and these types of friendships and I think I do want to like double down on making a point right now about people saying yes to this in their life and not holding back in their life and not holding back.
• 17:11
  Polly Mertens: You know, the other thing that I'm I'm getting, as you're sharing this is, you know, when we say unconditional, meaning you don't have to be a certain way for me to love you, I just love you in all the shapes and patterns and you know, whatever you do, it's like I get you, girl, you know, and we were talking about, you know, with Harper, it was, you know, going from a cocoon or you know, a caterpillar to a butterfly and Will was witness and was like right there and like, fuck, yeah, I totally want to support you on all of that.
• 17:34
  Polly Mertens: Whatever your beauty is, I appreciate all of it and I think there's a lesson in this like that's deeper, deeper, deeper than just friendships, because the more we can utilize what we do for one other person that we truly value and we hold dear and close, and we go on these epic adventures with and as we turn that to our fellow humans, whatever shape, country, religion, ever they are, the more open and unconditional our, our openness to them, doing them and you know, sometimes it doesn't look like how we would do it, or you know what makes us happy or we don't agree with.
• 18:16
  Polly Mertens: But just having this level of like non-resistance to people expressing themselves or believing what they want to believe or being who they think they are, you you know being themselves Going about that in the world, if more, if we could just at that human to human level, not just the close people that you love and adore and you want to spend a lot of time with, but walking into the world with a level of unconditional love like the Mother Teresa model, I think all of humanity could value that healing right.
• 18:45
  Polly Mertens: No well, god only knows.
• 18:46
  Polly Mertens: We need more of that healing, right?
• 18:48
  Samantha Pruitt: No, well, god only knows.
• 18:50
  Samantha Pruitt: We need more of that in the world right now.
• 18:51
  Samantha Pruitt: You know what was coming up for me when you were saying that.
• 18:54
  Samantha Pruitt: I was thinking about some of these unconditional friendships that I have, where you know we're the unlikeliest of friends.
• 19:02
  Samantha Pruitt: How in the hell did we connect and become friends?
• 19:09
  Samantha Pruitt: You're so different than me.
• 19:11
  Samantha Pruitt: You know these people have different skill sets, different career paths, different lifestyles, whatever, different ages, different cultural experiences, but yet when we're together, we are like linked in some, like I said, magical way, where we do actually make each other better and bring out the best in one another.
• 19:39
  Samantha Pruitt: And actually, even when we're completely different, having shared experiences, there's this deep connectedness that is just so incredibly beautiful and I don't know.
• 19:51
  Samantha Pruitt: You learn so much through those types of friendships, right?
• 19:55
  Samantha Pruitt: And the fact that that person, whoever they are, loves and accepts you and you're nothing like them is remarkable.
• 20:05
  Samantha Pruitt: I think that's actually where the best stuff happens right you compliment each other.
• 20:11
  Polly Mertens: You provide gifts for each other that you wouldn't otherwise experience you know, emotional gifts because of that differentiation, the uniqueness, and I think when you know what I started to get, as you were saying, that is people.
• 20:27
  Polly Mertens: So we, when we're on our own, we're neither speaking nor, you know, like we're not, let's say, expressing, we're just doing us or whatever.
• 20:38
  Polly Mertens: But when we're, when we interact with another human being, we have the ability to not only be heard, seen and felt like, only be heard, seen and felt Like.
• 20:54
  Polly Mertens: So we get someone looking at us, helps us be seen, heard and felt, if that person is open, like if they're, you know, present and paying attention, if you will.
• 20:58
  Polly Mertens: And I think that's where we, we, we, we noticed like it's like consciousness comes into reality, is like, oh, that person sees me right, like like I matter, or I'm, I'm, you know, I'm here right now, right, or they hear me, they, they're taking me in, they're accepting maybe not always, you know, on the same page with what I say, but like they're hearing me, like I feel heard, right, or, um, just being in a space with a human being, touching even better, but like even just being with another human being, we, we create, you know, there's definitely that energetic body, that interacting, it's like it's a part of the web of life, the fabric of humanity being in a human body form, if you will, um, that other person interacting with us helps us remember like, oh yeah, we're not just the spirit and the soul and the consciousness.
• 21:53
  Polly Mertens: We are in this human carnation right now, and they help us realize that.
• 22:00
  Samantha Pruitt: You know what else they do?
• 22:01
  Samantha Pruitt: That's freaking amazing.
• 22:03
  Samantha Pruitt: They bear witness to our pain and suffering, yeah.
• 22:08
  Samantha Pruitt: They bear witness to our joy and our evolution and our sometimes ugliness Messy.
• 22:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, totally Right.
• 22:20
  Samantha Pruitt: So they almost that unconditional love is like a mirror.
• 22:33
  Polly Mertens: We get to be fully expressed and seen through these relationships.
• 22:34
  Polly Mertens: You know it's not one of the insights, so one of the we were just talking about is like friends who love you unconditionally and the value of that in your life, my.
• 22:40
  Polly Mertens: So this movie, um, so I, I, I have never felt one of the things I was telling you as I was sharing with you what I got out of this movie is like I don't.
• 22:58
  Polly Mertens: I have seen transgender people.
• 23:00
  Polly Mertens: I respect them.
• 23:01
  Polly Mertens: I don't have them as close friends, I don't have them in my intimate circle, and so I've always had this like sort of tertiary understanding of what it's about or what it might be like.
• 23:13
  Polly Mertens: You know, I have gay friends and I've had friends over the years and ones that I've been comfortable with and can ask questions to, but I've never had a transgender friend.
• 23:20
  Polly Mertens: And so being able in this movie, so Will does a beautiful job of asking to a friend those sensitive questions that you might want to ask someone who just doesn't have the same feelings inside about themselves as you, or religion, culture, sex, all those things.
• 23:40
  Polly Mertens: He asks those delicate questions, such a safe space between Harper and Will.
• 23:45
  Polly Mertens: He answers them and we get to listen, to hear and understand what is life like when you're born a man and you feel like you want to be a woman and like walking this path through life and having to hide it or not you know, like thinking you're broken or broken inside and the terrible suffering and sadness that someone who doesn't get to fully express that has to live through.
• 24:13
  Polly Mertens: Not feeling like you're yourself.
• 24:15
  Polly Mertens: And so this movie is like such a beautiful opportunity to see when you are held in safe space and you just you know, and it's like little baby steps is how I see this.
• 24:27
  Polly Mertens: I don't know where Harper is on his journey and how well he's doing navigating life in the, let's say, the outer world if you will, but in his close network you could tell he was very held and supported so he could start to build his legs around the bravery of having compassion for himself.
• 24:44
  Polly Mertens: Like you know what I've been through a lot, I'm now believing this is who I am and I'm trusting and I'm going to go out into the world and express that self expression of who you truly are and having your close, intimate circle, your inner circle, witness it, say we love you, fuck, go for it right.
• 25:03
  Polly Mertens: Then you kind of work to those outer rings out in society and being able to witness that through that intimate circle that you wouldn't.
• 25:11
  Polly Mertens: I've never had a conversation like that.
• 25:14
  Polly Mertens: It was so beautiful.
• 25:16
  Polly Mertens: What do you think?
• 25:17
  Polly Mertens: How was that for you?
• 25:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:20
  Samantha Pruitt: It's riveting, it's breathtaking to witness and it's liberating.
• 25:28
  Samantha Pruitt: I loved also how Will just fucked it up terribly over and over and now Harper just said it's no problem, Because I don't expect you to do this perfectly and I don't expect you to know how to act and what to say and all of those kind of things.
• 25:49
  Samantha Pruitt: That's the unconditional relationship that goes both ways right.
• 25:54
  Samantha Pruitt: And we do have this in many instances with our own selves and friends, and you know where there's parts of them that maybe they feel shame or confusion or whatever.
• 26:08
  Samantha Pruitt: You know they're suffering in whatever way they are and just allowing that conversation to take place is incredibly healing.
• 26:16
  Samantha Pruitt: I also don't have any people in my life who are transgender and it was beautiful to witness the story, the outcoming, the peeling back of the layers of like trying to get a better, and it's not, you know, super detailed.
• 26:36
  Samantha Pruitt: It's just a matter of a person really deciding they're going to finally be themselves.
• 26:42
  Samantha Pruitt: I do have that experience.
• 26:44
  Samantha Pruitt: My son is gay and I have plenty of gay friends.
• 26:47
  Samantha Pruitt: That experience my son is gay and I have plenty of gay friends and you know being with them on their journey and still being part of their journey has been what an incredible gift to me.
• 26:57
  Samantha Pruitt: And hopefully I've provided space for them to be fully expressed and we'll continue to do that.
• 27:03
  Samantha Pruitt: But we learn so much about ourselves, right?
• 27:07
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm not perfect, I have guilt and shame and this and that, and old stories and blah, blah, blah.
• 27:14
  Samantha Pruitt: We all have stuff you know, and if you don't have unconditional love and friendship in your life and you keep that trapped inside of you, hmm, so it just eats away.
• 27:43
  Samantha Pruitt: That he purchased when he was a he, before he had transitioned, to go and hide and remove himself because he was in so much people, by the way, are living this way still to this day.
• 28:17
  Samantha Pruitt: It doesn't matter, it's a year 2024.
• 28:20
  Polly Mertens: There's still so much ignorance in the world and so much pain and suffering in these types of ways where people aren't fully expressed as themselves, and to witness that and realize the amount of suffering oh, you know, I think, yeah, the one of the big things for me is just this new understand, and I'm sure there's other areas of the world or people or types or things that I have ignorance about.
• 28:49
  Polly Mertens: I fully support and accept and they don't need my acceptance.
• 28:54
  Polly Mertens: But what I mean is I just I don't feel any way that would be not them being their whole self.
• 29:00
  Polly Mertens: I just don't.
• 29:00
  Polly Mertens: You know, I had a lot of unknown about being transgender and what that life was like, and so now seeing I know there's a few people in my community that are transgender that I know about I'm sure there's more that either are in the closet or would love to be and it's like I have such a compassion and I just want to go.
• 29:20
  Polly Mertens: Oh, my God, how the bravery.
• 29:23
  Polly Mertens: It must take the bravery the strength to walk down the street when you don't when you don't, you know, when you weren't, you know, born in a body that looks very feminine.
• 29:35
  Polly Mertens: And you, you feel feminine and you want to wear women's clothing and you walk out in the world and you do that and, knowing that you walk into a culture, a mindset of people that, like me, didn't understand it, I didn't like think badly on it, but I just was like I don't know what that life is like.
• 29:57
  Polly Mertens: And now I'm like I have a doorway into understanding what it's like inside for that person, because Harper does a beautiful job, I would say, of expressing and sharing Like it's just.
• 30:09
  Polly Mertens: It's like it's just who I am, like it's not, and he doesn't even understand.
• 30:14
  Polly Mertens: That's what I.
• 30:15
  Polly Mertens: One of the things I found interesting was like how it you can't think your way out of it, like he couldn't, like you know, just kind of keep it down.
• 30:25
  Polly Mertens: It's like you're born this way, like he, you know he doesn't make sense.
• 30:30
  Polly Mertens: It's like I don't know why I like dressing in women's clothing.
• 30:32
  Polly Mertens: I just do Right.
• 30:33
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, fuck, yeah, do that Right.
• 30:36
  Polly Mertens: And so this movie has, I hope you know, moves the needle in our culture and in our conversations.
• 30:45
  Polly Mertens: You know there's some movies that have moved the needle from, you know, heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, whatever.
• 30:55
  Polly Mertens: And we're moving the needle now, I think, in transgender sexuality, so that all is welcome, like all is more known and accepted and widely universally like.
• 31:03
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know, sometimes you're this, sometimes you're that.
• 31:06
  Polly Mertens: So, whatever you want to be, right, being who you feel you want to be.
• 31:13
  Samantha Pruitt: And if you do that for yourself, you do it for another.
• 31:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Not everybody can relate to this is a pretty radical experience we're talking about, but there are all these less radical but equally disempowering or empowering other ways that people are going about living.
• 31:39
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, maybe they have other things that they're not really fully expressing in the world Right.
• 31:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Maybe it's religion, maybe it is, you know, their career path, maybe it is whatever, whatever, some other piece of their identity that they've been walking around, you know, in a costume that doesn't fit.
• 32:04
  Samantha Pruitt: It's not who they are, they're pretending.
• 32:07
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it just breaks my heart to think about the scale of what that might be like in a society like ours.
• 32:14
  Samantha Pruitt: It's totally unacceptable.
• 32:17
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, and I think, like the running theme of this, that I'm hearing this unconditional word, you know, just like like let down the walls, let down the conditions, the expectations that we picked up through generational nonsense of this is, you know, I mean you have to marry.
• 32:36
  Polly Mertens: To marry, you know, man and woman, marriage is that's how it is right, that that's, that's a union.
• 32:42
  Polly Mertens: Well, not necessarily, you know, and, and I mean, people are doing it all sorts of ways, and I mean the more you dig in you know lots of people aren't even doing it anymore.
• 32:50
  Samantha Pruitt: They're like no thanks, yeah, yeah, yeah, why, why bother, like who knows?
• 32:54
  Samantha Pruitt: If it's not for you, it's not for you.
• 32:56
  Samantha Pruitt: You Also I want to add a little jest and humor.
• 32:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Like you know what's also fun about this movie?
• 33:03
  Samantha Pruitt: This road trip they got.
• 33:06
  Polly Mertens: Oh dude.
• 33:07
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, dude, let's talk about that.
• 33:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Road trips and travel and shared adventures are next fucking level living.
• 33:16
  Samantha Pruitt: I have literally made, and so have you a life out of this.
• 33:22
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't start until I was over 30.
• 33:25
  Samantha Pruitt: But once I figured out the sweet sauce about this way of living and being in the world it's how I choose to invest my time, energy and resources is having these experiences.
• 33:36
  Samantha Pruitt: I am transformed every single time and I know the people I'm sharing these journeys with.
• 33:42
  Samantha Pruitt: My friends are also transformed.
• 33:45
  Polly Mertens: Yeah for sure.
• 33:46
  Polly Mertens: You know two things that you just what you just said sparked for me.
• 33:50
  Polly Mertens: One is I think I got the travel adventure experience bug.
• 33:55
  Polly Mertens: If I think about it now, and it's probably just because because you know I was in a not sheltered life, but I was, you know, you live under your parents roof and you do what they do, you know.
• 34:04
  Polly Mertens: So you don't have a lot of vote because you don't have money to like, hey, I'm gonna jump in the car and whatever it's like.
• 34:09
  Polly Mertens: Oh, family vacation, x, y, whatever.
• 34:11
  Polly Mertens: But I remember it was in college and I was nearing the end of graduating and I got an impulse to and this was before internet.
• 34:20
  Polly Mertens: This was back when, if you are older than like we are, there used to be AAA and AAA had a roadside service, whatever.
• 34:29
  Polly Mertens: They could draw maps for you, right?
• 34:31
  Polly Mertens: So you didn't have to go, like if you wanted to take a cross-country road trip, you would actually go to AAA.
• 34:35
  Polly Mertens: You would say do you remember?
• 34:38
  Samantha Pruitt: this Do.
• 34:39
  Polly Mertens: Do you remember this?
• 34:39
  Polly Mertens: Do you remember?
• 34:40
  Polly Mertens: This yes, yeah, totally so I went into triple a.
• 34:42
  Polly Mertens: I wanted.
• 34:43
  Polly Mertens: I got this impulse to go to santa fe, new mexico, right before graduating from high school or college that's radical yeah, it was great.
• 34:50
  Polly Mertens: I was like santa fe, okay, and I was like, all right, well, I'll bring my bike and I put it in my car.
• 34:54
  Polly Mertens: I took the tires off, put it in my car, whatever.
• 34:56
  Polly Mertens: I took the tires off, put it in my car, whatever, and off I went to Santa Fe.
• 34:59
  Polly Mertens: I show up to AAA and they mapped it all out.
• 35:00
  Polly Mertens: I had like multiple pages.
• 35:02
  Polly Mertens: I mean it was just this ginormous thing to try and keep me going there these days much easier.
• 35:06
  Polly Mertens: So that reminded me of that.
• 35:08
  Polly Mertens: And the second thing is but that was a solo trip, but the I can remember getting into Santa Fe or Albuquerque.
• 35:14
  Polly Mertens: I think I landed in Albuquerque and I remember and this was, you know, I didn't have much money, I mean, this was like hosteling and stuff.
• 35:23
  Polly Mertens: So I stayed in this hostel in Albuquerque and the funny thing that I remember, like the whole trip, like what do you remember?
• 35:26
  Polly Mertens: I remember being in this hostel and then the morning you know, hostels are you sleep in your own bed or bunk beds or whatever, and then there's a communal kitchen and living area.
• 35:38
  Polly Mertens: So I'm in this kitchen and this lady walks out and she's eating raw garlic.
• 35:41
  Polly Mertens: Oh, okay, she's telling me about the benefits of eating raw garlic.
• 35:45
  Polly Mertens: I don't know why I remember that, but these little interactions, these moments in time, right, and then you know, years later, fast forward.
• 35:51
  Polly Mertens: I love going to hostels all over Europe.
• 35:54
  Polly Mertens: In my twenties because of the rich people I would bump into in the kitchens I was like this is fucking amazing.
• 35:59
  Polly Mertens: I love, you know, getting to know other people and cultures, and one of the things you've heard me talking about recently, my new urge and impulse is to start hiking, doing a trek in Nepal, and what is most exciting to me about that idea it's not like I have no interest in doing Everest that's somebody else's dream, not mine but I think about.
• 36:20
  Polly Mertens: They have these treks in Nepal where, if you can picture, you know, cities, small little villages, like village, no road kind of thing.
• 36:28
  Polly Mertens: People trek up these ginormous mountains into the Himalayas and I think it's the Himalayas and there's little shanty towns and they have these things called tea houses where they have little guest houses and people do this trek, this hike, and the idea for me of being able to hike all day in beautiful scenery, culturally enriched, stopping at the end of the day, tired, eating locally prepared food, having talk with travelers and the locals is like it's a heaven on earth for me, Right, Well, what's even better is if you do that with a friend, because then you have this totally different experience of this shared journey together, where you both grew tremendously and you not only were witnessing the other person grow, you were part of it.
• 37:24
  Samantha Pruitt: But like the amount of shared experiences through that, just yeah well you were the first person I reached out to.
• 37:31
  Polly Mertens: I was like, hey, let's go to tea houses and trek nepal.
• 37:37
  Polly Mertens: And you're like I just got back from France Not thinking of that yet I was like I'll just let it marinate, you know, but of course I want you there.
• 37:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Of course.
• 37:47
  Samantha Pruitt: And if you are open to maybe doing things you've never done before, or maybe you're a little intimidated or maybe you're not sure, go ahead and figure it out.
• 37:59
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, don't we feel like basically invincible if we're there together?
• 38:04
  Samantha Pruitt: We're like, okay, double the superwoman, nothing could go terribly wrong here, and of course, even if it does, we don't even give a crap, we'll figure it out.
• 38:14
  Samantha Pruitt: And that's also hilarious, like we just work our way through any given situation and you know we have shared knowledge and like you have your strengths, I have my strengths.
• 38:26
  Samantha Pruitt: We compliment each other.
• 38:27
  Samantha Pruitt: There's so many reasons to do this with friends, but you know what's my real reason for doing all these things with friends?
• 38:35
  Polly Mertens: No.
• 38:37
  Samantha Pruitt: I have something called the old lady house.
• 38:41
  Samantha Pruitt: It's going to happen at some point in my life and I don't know if I'm going to be 80 or 90 or what's going to happen here but I have this vision in this dream and I've had it for many, a long time.
• 38:51
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean this didn't come up recently with aging that I'm sitting around in this shared housing, shared community situation with a bunch of my old girlfriends and I'm not saying dudes aren't welcome, but you know, generally women live longer and we're all sitting on the porch in our rocking chairs drinking a nice cold beer and all of our lessons and learnings and pain and suffering and growth, but in a way with one another that just makes it come alive, you know, and if you were there with me and remember this time we did this and we'll make shit up, even that didn't even happen, because we can say whatever we want.
• 39:37
  Samantha Pruitt: But there's something so beautiful about that and I have that vision for, you know, my aging years it's gonna, it's gonna be a reality we, you know, and you reminded me so like right after covid I did this trip and I was revisiting with a friend of like.
• 39:54
  Polly Mertens: you know, it's amazing how you do the same trip with someone and they remember a little bit things that you forgot and you remember things that they forgot, and it's like you feel each other's memories.
• 40:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:03
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:04
  Polly Mertens: So you know.
• 40:05
  Polly Mertens: One thing I just want to insert into this, and I don't know if that is our one thing, but it's like, as you're listening to this, I hope you don't need to go to trek to Nepalal, you don't need to go across the country, but you do need to reach out to a friend, maybe that you haven't talked to, or somebody that's your best buddy, or something like what is stirring inside of you that could help you experience connectedness, unconditional love, finding that, that perfect union of like adventure.
• 40:36
  Polly Mertens: But you, but it's about the people you're with, the friendships, not necessarily the amazing sites or something.
• 40:42
  Polly Mertens: It's like, hey, let's do this thing.
• 40:44
  Polly Mertens: Could you go on a fun day date together?
• 40:48
  Polly Mertens: Just maybe you want to go for eight hours and go hike somewhere or go shopping, whatever.
• 40:54
  Polly Mertens: Go, do what feels good for you, paint a, paint together something and like, reach out to that person, like, like, I hope this is stirring inside of you, like we always talk about it every day.
• 41:05
  Polly Mertens: Awesome, it's like life is in the rich moments of every day.
• 41:08
  Polly Mertens: Awesomeness, right, it's us creating those moments, seeing the opportunities, since seizing them, and like, okay, I'm going to do that thing, I'm going.
• 41:19
  Polly Mertens: Opportunities since seizing them and like, okay, I'm gonna do that thing, I'm gonna do it now, like not next year, next, whatever it's like, what's, what's maybe something small that you can do to just connect with that person, have a little mini adventure.
• 41:28
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I love just taking little jaunts I live in san luis obispo and santa barbara's about two hours away running down there throwing my scooter in with friend and just like tooling around or something Right, and then just it doesn't have to be three days of backpacking or 10 days of backpacking or two weeks of trucking in Nepal and all that Like, just keep making those memories and moments Every now and then, what I do, and I actually just did a round of that this week with a bunch of people.
• 41:54
  Samantha Pruitt: I was looking at my phone through pictures and I found all these old pictures and I just shot random texts to old friends that I haven't seen or connected in a while.
• 42:06
  Samantha Pruitt: I was like remember this crazy shit?
• 42:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Like I just sent out a bunch of text bombs left and right to people and I just poked people basically and said, hey, you're on my mind, You're on my heart, I'm thinking about you.
• 42:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Remember this, right.
• 42:25
  Samantha Pruitt: So sharing of a memory, and then like let's just reconnect.
• 42:29
  Samantha Pruitt: And some people were like what you know?
• 42:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Like it just made their day, maybe made their week, I don't know, and you know other people were like, yeah, that was cool, it doesn't matter.
• 42:40
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't need to have, like a particular response, it was just me reminding them of their significance in my life, their impact in my life and this shared moment of humanity we had together.
• 42:54
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and that's so easy to do.
• 42:56
  Polly Mertens: Keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing, and that's so easy to do.
• 42:58
  Polly Mertens: So, keep doing it, keep doing it, do it on the regular.
• 43:01
  Samantha Pruitt: I do have something that's a little bit of a one thing, but since this is about unconditional love and acceptance, I know in the heart, soul and spirit of every human who's listening to this, they want, they yearn for, they need unconditional love and acceptance.
• 43:21
  Samantha Pruitt: And so what I'd like to say is what you do for another, you do for the self, and what you do for the self, you do for another.
• 43:33
  Samantha Pruitt: So exercising that muscle of giving unconditional love and acceptance to another allows you to do it with yourself, and that's so healing.
• 43:47
  Polly Mertens: And where.
• 43:48
  Polly Mertens: Maybe are you in hearing this and I hope, anybody listening.
• 43:53
  Polly Mertens: If you haven't seen that movie, I hope you will check it out If we haven't sold it, it must be sane, it must be sane and like, where in your life do you have barriers to unconditional love still up?
• 44:05
  Polly Mertens: what?
• 44:05
  Polly Mertens: What is a?
• 44:06
  Polly Mertens: What is a barrier?
• 44:07
  Polly Mertens: Is it an expectation for that person or they?
• 44:09
  Polly Mertens: They wronged me?
• 44:10
  Polly Mertens: Is it some forgiveness you need to extend to them or to yourself?
• 44:15
  Polly Mertens: Um, where are the barriers to unconditional love flowing?
• 44:18
  Polly Mertens: Because love is a, it's a, it's an energy field.
• 44:22
  Polly Mertens: So you are here to uh love, be loved and be loved, you know, be in the space of loving.
• 44:29
  Polly Mertens: I feel like one of our.
• 44:31
  Polly Mertens: One of the things I know to be true through all the work that I've done in inner work and journeys and stuff is at the essence of every human being is love and it's just, it's there as a.
• 44:42
  Polly Mertens: Sometimes it's a quiet little whisper and sometimes it's just flowing out and oozing out of their eyeballs.
• 44:47
  Polly Mertens: You know, just love is who they are walking in the world.
• 44:50
  Polly Mertens: And I think one of the things I have learned is we are here to flow love and, you know, sometimes we make that conditional, like.
• 44:59
  Polly Mertens: There's two ways you can look at this, or I've learned through my meditation practices One is conditional love is when things are beautiful on the outside in the world.
• 45:07
  Polly Mertens: Then I flow love, like if it looks a certain way, or if it matches my expectations, or if they do the right thing, then I'll love them.
• 45:15
  Polly Mertens: But truly, you're here to love and so where you are holding yourself back from feeling and flowing unconditional love to the people, to the other cultures, to the people you don't agree with politically, to whatever people that look different than you, where are you holding back the love that is wanting to flow through, from you and through you?
• 45:37
  Polly Mertens: Because in those places you are keeping yourself from feeling love.
• 45:42
  Polly Mertens: And it's your, absolutely.
• 45:44
  Polly Mertens: It's your job to remove the barrier, it's your job to recognize it doesn't have a place, it doesn't belong.
• 45:51
  Polly Mertens: It's not who you are.
• 45:52
  Polly Mertens: You are the essence of love and anything that stands in the way of you flowing that love unconditionally is a barrier that you want to remove and recognize that stands in the way of you flowing that love unconditionally is a barrier that you want to remove and recognize that you put it in there like either family of origin helped put it in there and you're keeping it there, but you can remove it, you can chip away at it or you can just dissolve it if you will.
• 46:11
  Polly Mertens: So knowing that unconditional love can flow and it's up to you and then secondarily.
• 46:16
  Polly Mertens: So a lot of times we look out in the world and it's like, oh, when the world is perfect, then I'm going to love it and send love to it.
• 46:22
  Polly Mertens: That's cutting us off from love, right?
• 46:24
  Polly Mertens: The second thing is you don't need anything on the outside to be right or to be according to your plan or expectation for you to flow love, because at any moment, if you just tap in, if you just have an inner moment and you really just sit with yourself, you already know your love inside.
• 46:43
  Polly Mertens: You just know it.
• 46:44
  Polly Mertens: Like.
• 46:44
  Polly Mertens: You can't keep yourself from knowing that your love, unless you have some mental constructs or some old stories that are in the way of that.
• 46:51
  Polly Mertens: But when you really just check in, it's there.
• 46:55
  Polly Mertens: And so, guess what?
• 46:56
  Polly Mertens: You have an endless supply of love energy.
• 47:00
  Polly Mertens: If you just recognize it's already inside of you.
• 47:02
  Polly Mertens: And if you start looking outside of you and stop, you know, refusing to share it and spread it.
• 47:09
  Samantha Pruitt: And we love you unconditionally we do we don't even know so many of the listeners we've never met.
• 47:18
  Samantha Pruitt: We don't know many.
• 47:20
  Polly Mertens: We of course do know, but the point is we love them all unconditionally yeah, yeah, if you're, if you're, if you've listened to this point, oh, for god's sake, if you listen to the two of us chat on about friendships and unconditional love and adventure, then you're our people.
• 47:35
  Polly Mertens: And even if you're not, we love you and you know.
• 47:36
  Polly Mertens: Even if you listen to, we love you and you know, even if you listen to us, it goes those two broads.
• 47:40
  Polly Mertens: They should just turn that noise down.
• 47:43
  Polly Mertens: Like well, you know, I think the more and more I see movies like Will and Harper and just movies that helped me understand other people's perspective, the more I know we're all the same, we're all unique.
• 47:59
  Polly Mertens: We're all unique snowflakes doing our best in this life.
• 48:01
  Polly Mertens: That's challenging, right, and it's our job to expand and elevate our mind, our consciousness, our acceptance of ourselves and others in a way that allows that essence of us, that love inside of us, to flow out into the world and for us to receive it.
• 48:17
  Samantha Pruitt: What a good way to land this episode.
• 48:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Boom, all right.
• 48:21
  Polly Mertens: One thing Do we want?
• 48:25
  Polly Mertens: To summarize it for them.
• 48:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, we said the one thing, it's 10 things.
• 48:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, the one thing this week is all those 10 things.
• 48:34
  Polly Mertens: So if you've listened to this point, I think you've gotten whatever you're supposed to get out of this, and maybe we'll get from watching this movie, which we hope you will um or if you already did, then you're on the same page with us and you know how beautiful it was.
• 48:47
  Polly Mertens: So we hope you, you know, maybe pick up the phone or call a friend or think about a way that you could have those special moments and memories and build, you know, those bonds with people that mean something to you.
• 48:58
  Polly Mertens: And maybe it's going out of your way and maybe it's making a bigger deal of it, or maybe it's finally like going.
• 49:04
  Polly Mertens: I'm going to do that big freaking adventure I've been putting off.
• 49:07
  Polly Mertens: Maybe it is a big hairy ass goal, right, but maybe it's something simple, and whichever one, it is for you, do it now.
• 49:14
  Polly Mertens: Do it when you stop listening to this Like don't wait, don't wait, that person wants it as much as you do, or those people in your life want it as much as you do.
• 49:24
  Samantha Pruitt: So we invite you to do that.
• 49:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, I know everybody has this kind of friendship, this powerful, unconditional love and acceptance friendship.
• 49:31
  Samantha Pruitt: They maybe have let it go to sleep, maybe they haven't to sleep, maybe they haven't, but this is the moment to reignite, for sure.
• 49:46
  Polly Mertens: Okay, all right.
• 49:46
  Polly Mertens: Well, what have you got to say about yourself, little lady?
• 49:48
  Polly Mertens: Well, I want to.
• 49:48
  Polly Mertens: I I enjoyed this, you know, and one of the things that we talked about when we, you know, when we plan our episodes is what are we going to talk about?
• 49:55
  Polly Mertens: And you know, and some, uh, podcasters have, you know, some schedules and people that they've lined up and stuff, and the things that we're about here.
• 50:03
  Polly Mertens: One thing we're up about sales ability.
• 50:09
  Polly Mertens: How can we make this as authentic as timely too?
• 50:14
  Polly Mertens: Because, like the things that either are happening in your life, happening in my life, both our lives, the world, consciously you know what's going on we want to like just bring that and just spread it and take our, have our, take on it and help people, you know, maybe look at things a little bit differently or open their minds to things.
• 50:30
  Polly Mertens: So you know, we really enjoyed this episode.
• 50:32
  Polly Mertens: We hope you did.
• 50:33
  Polly Mertens: We'd love your feedback.
• 50:34
  Polly Mertens: If us talking about a book or a movie or something that touched us, or a conversation or an interview that we saw or heard, if that, you know, is something you want us to continue to do, please share ones with us.
• 50:47
  Polly Mertens: If you know of any that like here's a book that I think you'll love, here's a movie that, oh my God, it was amazing.
• 50:52
  Polly Mertens: Or here's a conversation, an interview that I saw that was just fr freaking right up your alley, so that we can help spread that message.
• 50:59
  Polly Mertens: You know we would love to continue to echo the amazing things and people and humans and moments that are going on in the world, that are being captured, and then we can spread them.
• 51:07
  Polly Mertens: So let us know.
• 51:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, to me, these podcasts are conversations with friends.
• 51:15
  Samantha Pruitt: It's how you and I determined we were even going to do this.
• 51:20
  Samantha Pruitt: We were going to start recording some of the conversations we have and then, additionally, inviting others to the table to be with us.
• 51:31
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's how I feel like the listeners has a seat at the table, they're with us.
• 51:35
  Samantha Pruitt: That's what it is for me, and I absolutely freaking love it, love it, love it, love it, love you, lady.
• 51:43
  Polly Mertens: Keep it going.
• 51:43
  Polly Mertens: So what do you want to remind our beautiful humans to keep in mind this week as they move forward?
• 51:50
  Samantha Pruitt: How their messy, complicated life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 51:58
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
• 52:02
  Polly Mertens: We love you guys?
• 52:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Yep, yes, we do unconditionally See you next time.
• 52:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Peace out.