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Friendship Files #1 - Losing your consumer mindset · The Habit Lab

• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We all have areas in our life we might feel stuck or overwhelmed.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So join me, Jenna Zint, habit coach, teacher, and follower of Jesus, as we go after little bits of better by building offensively small habits that create big impact.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Habit Lab Podcast.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: You guys, I just no, that's not how you're supposed to start a podcast.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Habit Lab.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is Jenna Marisant, and I just tried to record that beforehand, and that was the better take you just got.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: The other one, I just started laughing and giggling and snorting, and I didn't even tell a joke.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's funny.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I have a lot of fun in my own brain by myself.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the definition of insanity, or maybe it's the road to joy.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I am not sure.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: The jury is still out.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this is gonna be a series about friendships.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Friendship, friends, how to do friendship, things I've learned about friendship.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I recently, so I've been thinking about doing podcasts about friendship for years.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was funny, I was going through my Google Drive for these notes, and I have so many musings and notes and unfinished thoughts about friendship.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're just gonna start.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think I felt overwhelmed because there's so much to do and tackle.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, I'm just gonna go where I have the lead, and I'm sure there will be more episodes to come in the future.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I recently just got invited to speak to a small group about friendship.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go off of the notes that I prepared to talk there and kind of elaborate a little bit.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But um, if I could, I think I'm gonna call this series on friendship things I wish I knew in my twenties about friendship.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple, I mean, I think I have like six or seven points for when I actually spoke.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how much self-control I'm gonna go if I'm actually gonna be able to do seven weeks in one series.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big commitment.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's beyond what I think I'll be able to ask my ADHD self to do in a row.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll at least tackle some of them.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, I honestly I hope what you hear in this episode, the tone that I want to come across as is less, I don't know, like teaching or expert, and more the humility of I mean, I guess literally like the title said, things that I wish I had known.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And now that I have known, I've gone back and apologized to people or just taken so much more of a less puffed up assuming I I I'm missing something, assuming that there's gonna be room for me to grow here approach than I did the last couple dec the last decade at least.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was funny because I'll turn I'm turning 40 in December and I had we went to I went to Montana with my small group and we got to explore Glacier National Park and it was so stunning.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we actually had a ton of time in the car because it took like an hour every day.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: We went to the park from the place we were staying to get there, sometimes even more.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we I our friend my friend group loves good conversation and will throw out prompts and to ask people.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, we were kind of pondering where we're at with like how we feel about being the age that we're currently at and reflecting on heading into being 40.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just feel more aware than I ever have about how much I don't know.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not maybe like late 20s would be maybe that mindset would have been more self-deprecating or like shame-ish approach.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Where now I feel I feel like every couple months I get so my brain is blown about how I saw thing something one way for so long and thought the people who did it X way were so wrong.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And now, I don't know, the Lord brings some different revelation or understanding about the gospel or my misapplication, or you know, and then I'm like, oh, oops, I was actually judging all those people wrong when this this is more true, like whatever, you know, like a better version or application of what mercy looks like here, or gosh.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So then I've just been going back like the last like probably year of sharing with this group.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've gone back and just apologized to people of like, I mean, as casual as one of my friends who has teenagers and would talk about the things with teenagers.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just subconsciously, I'd be like, yeah, that's not how I'm gonna do teen life, or that's because that's how it is in your family, probably because of you know, cause and effect of what you have and haven't done with parenting, but I'm gonna have different results.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, and so way less kind of superiority on some level.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm immune to some of the hard things because I'm gonna do it differently, and way overestimating that people are getting results because of their lack or failure versus like there's things outside of their force.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, um, that is the tone that I want for this episode is really just humility of like, whoof, I did not get that right for so long, and now I feel very aware of this truth being relevant.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so the first mindset that I wish I had in my 20s was I lot I I wish I would have lost my consumerism approach to friendship.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think so many of us can approach friendship as what I need, what I get from you, how I feel when I'm around you, um how you see me, um, how you think about me.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like how you make me feel, what I yeah, all those things.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's the me focus lens, even if it's you make me feel, you know, like in a good way, like they make me feel special and smart, but it's this, it is still this like self-self-centered approach that I did not realize was like permeating the the purpose of what I thought friendship would be, therefore made me entitled or kind of take a measuring stick on how people were or weren't showing up for me.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this is so subconscious, but I watch, I know I'm not alone in this, in sitting, you know, in friendships and hearing people's pain, like, oh, I think so much of our pain would be decreased.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it would eradicate, like people make messes, other people make messes all the time in our life.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like it would eradicate the pain, but it would decrease if we expect or we lose this mindset of consumerism.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do we get?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: How do they make us feel?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: What do they give to us?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like um the sense of we're entitled to equitableness in friendships in a way that we don't expect.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we're doing ministry or pouring out or we're serving, we've we've lost that mindset of consumerism.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: We know we're way more aware that it's what we give.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I think a lot of times in marriage, and but then specifically in friendship, let's talk, you could honestly think about your marriage as a friendship with your spouse, you know.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we we we slip into this what we're entitled because it's a different type of friendship and it gets more to equitableness, which becomes like the consumerism of what are you giving me though?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Are you measuring up?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are you pulling your weight?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are you disappointing me?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Are you, you know, am I the bigger person and am I contributing more?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it just slowly can slip into consumerism with the very people that are, you know, closest to our heart, and we change our expectations in a way that just makes it almost like not discounts, but voids some of the teachings or expectations that the gospel has set for us, like thinking of Sermon on the Mount things, and then some of it like turn the other cheek or walk the extra mile with friendship.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, no, no, but but friends shouldn't have to, you know, your friends wouldn't ask you to do that, or your friends shouldn't present opportunities where you have to turn the other cheek.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like those are for the not, I mean the bad people or the ones who aren't in your inner circle.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I think uh the consumerism approach when we adapt that with how we show up in friendship or what we expect, what we think we're entitled to because they've got this title of friendship, um, makes us almost misapply opportunities be for the gospel, for mercy, for grace, because it's supposed to be different with our friends, you know.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: For me, noticing some of the like attributes of consumerism mindset with friendship is when I reduce friendship to a source of fun and pleasure.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Again, like what they're giving me, what I walk away with, I miss its true significance, you know?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like friendship is not a side note or an optional part of our walk with the Lord.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I think this can go, it goes astray when some people expect their spouse and their family, a little family unit to be everything, or and then they don't have a value for friendships.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And our, you know, we have a couple podcasts in our marriage podcasts where we feel like that usually puts a suffocating amount of pressure on the spouse to be the everything, their source of connection and friendship and being known.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's usually more than one person can handle.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also too, I just think it doesn't lend itself to us doing community.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to get isolated into our own little family units versus like friendship makes us almost like cross-pollinate in a way that's helpful.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also, too, I think that friendship isn't a side note or an optional part of our walk with the Lord.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I feel immensely like I love my friends, but I feel immensely grateful for Aaron's friends because they have a spoken truth and called him out in a way that I could like he didn't hear from me.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my gosh, like they are a tool.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, there's a cost when he goes out and sees that movie with them or gets up early to do coffee and I'm doing, you know, the morning routine solo.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a cost to it, but I can become too aware of the cost and lose sight on the fruit of what how I'm benefiting.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not fair, it's not like cost me one day, you know, he went to coffee and he came back with a little bit of a you know true slap from the friend.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like cost worth it instantly.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes in our instant world, we like that where I'm like, sometimes I will be quote unquote paying the cost for his friendships, and it's not, you know, until six months that there's this really good conversation.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh, there's the fruit, worth the cost.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's so not like weekly check and balance.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: The cost of his friendship on the rest of our family is worth it, or even for me, but the idea of like, oh, it's actually not an optional part of our walk with the Lord.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a when you are thriving or you have your homes totally settled or your marriage is, you know, beautiful, then go get friends.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually like one of the essential building blocks for those other areas.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost a lot of times they'll watch us wait until we feel like we're not overwhelmed with motherhood or our marriage is thriving, then we'll go get friendships, like the third piece.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, we the like the purpose of friendship when you're not thinking about it as just a source of fun and pleasure, where it's not this optional add-on when it's also not just about what I'm getting, like the purpose of friendship is that like we were created to be known and to know, like both are true.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we're also encouraged.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, the purpose of friendship and what how we were created is to encourage and be encouraged.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And again, there's like this unique flavor that doesn't just come from your husband or your spouse that is like a beautiful supplement.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It almost reminds me of, you know, how like sometimes um in plants, like fields, what the rainwater has run through.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it ran down a mountain through a forest before it got to this crop.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: All of the mineral deposits that are in the water as it's picked up as it's gone, now nourish the field of crops that it gets to.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like thinking about friendships, like these little tributaries are bringing in nourishment as you get encouraged, as you're known, as um they're helping you grow and you're helping them grow.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: That is actually gonna benefit the ecosystem of your inner world and your little family.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, like that's the point of some of the why we're designed to do community and friendship.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think friendship is one of the primary ways we're actually shaped to look more like Jesus, not just on Sunday mornings or not just in like structured life groups or I don't know, whatever your church, our church calls a we have revival group regions and small groups and um core groups and life groups, family groups, whatever.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I love actual consistency and I love structure, so I'm not saying those are bad, but I think a lot of the shaping, like maybe you build the history and the consistency there, but a lot of the shaping happens in friendship, you know, well, friends influence your life and vice versa, in the everyday, like the life on life moments where our true character formation happens.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times the most helpful character formation is in the moments of pain and how we walk through it and how they walk through it and how we make repair.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that we do it perfectly, but like I have actually learned so much about sticking in relationships when they're hard and you both feel hurt and misunderstood in friendships in a way that has shaped me so much more powerfully than my marriage.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's this like duh, because it's a covenant with your marriage, but with friendships, it's so much, I don't know, maybe it's just me because my trigger response is flight, but like it was so much easier to justify breaking connection or slowly walking away, or because they're not healthy, or the pain, the repeated pattern of pain, but like actually leaning in and sticking it through.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's something so much more beautiful that gets formed.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of reminds me of, you know, how they talk about that experiment where they made a perfect ecosystem, like in a dome.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some scientist environmentalist, I guess, would be, we're trying to recreate a system.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they were able to perfect everything except the trees would grow until they would break and they would fall over.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it was because they couldn't create the wind, and the wind is actually what made the resistance of the wind, like the pressure, the force, the resistance in the wind is actually what made this tree strong.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of think about that with friendship.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the pressure, it's not a sign that it's not working, or you should, you know, give up hope and go back to your own little world, but it's actually going to make you stronger if you lean in and let you know Jesus shape you.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like true character formation happen moments, you know.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Friendship is actually kind of the foundational piece of community.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's within community that we work out our salvation.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when I think of working out, like that scripture of working out our salvation, it kind of reminds me of well, the the clay, you know, us being clay in God's hands.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So again, working out our salvation is less us, you know, law under the law striving.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is definitely grace, obviously.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But when we think about us being clay in the potter's hand, like it's a process.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is not instantly.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think working out our salvation, I think of less clay in the potter's hand that feels soft and gentle.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think more of like a blacksmith who's getting, who's like pounding the hot metal into the shape they're looking for?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, sometimes friendship moments where there's real pain and misunderstanding and hurt and not easy, clear solutions, and you see things differently, and it feels like the their perspective is sending you a message about what you're worth that you can't get over.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh, these are the when I feel like friendship is is working out, is hammering out my salvation in these moments.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's the acid test, like I was saying before.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: About am I able to show up and apply the gospel?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or because if I have a consumer, consumerism reproach, I'm like, see, this isn't worth it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're too much.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're like it's costing me, it's not fun, it's not life-giving anymore.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is evidence that I meant to like walk away versus what if that starts, if we lose our consumer consumerism of what I get, how do they make me feel?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Approach to friendship, we're like, oh, maybe this is evidence that it's working.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: The walking, the working out my salvation.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I am fully feeling like a hot piece of metal.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, we have um, I don't know why we have a lot of blacksmiths in our local reading area where there is um, I can think of two community festivals that I have taken my kids to in the last five months that have blacksmith demonstrations.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: One's old school, like literally in a fire, and then the other one more recently that we went to this last week and had like a branding thing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I think of that, you know.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, watching it be like sizzle the metal and like slowly shape it and they're hitting it with iron, you know, uh, or whatever their tools are.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Feel free to write me in and tell me what blacksmith tools are are called.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I can actually very vividly see what it feels like for a work the blacksmith to work out the shape to shape that metal with force into what it's supposed to be.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I think of those friendship moments when we ditch the consumerism.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, see, it shouldn't feel like this, but what if we actually zoom out and ask the Lord what it's forming in us?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like that friendship is a tool that is actually meant to shape us into the character of Christ.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Feedback of it being hard or or painful or uncomfortable is not that we're meant to ditch it or it's not working because it's not fun or it's not giving us life.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, actually, what if it's part of the shaping?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: What if the uncomfortableness is feedback that you're growing or the Lord's highlighting something?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that the person's what they say the pain is, you take like, yep, I'm a selfish friend because I did not invite you to lunch once a week.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm saying.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in the uncomfortable of like, oh, I don't feel understood by them in this area is that uncomfortableness, not saying how they see it is right or wrong, or how I see it as right or wrong and they're wrong, or I'm wrong.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're losing that courtroom mindset that we have so many podcasts about.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, what if the uncomfortableness in friendship and what if the pain, if we lose the consumerism approach more, like what if we think that's part of the process?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the purpose behind friendships in this walking out of our salvation and the formation.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, friendship is like the laboratory where we experiment with growing our ability to love.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's where we receive feedback in areas that we don't yet reflect him.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's the hardest.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: What if you see it and they say it and they're you're kind of like, yeah, yeah, you're not wrong.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, probably you have a bit of feedback for them.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't see it like that and they they point it out, whether or not it's right or wrong, ooh, the humility to hear their perspective without instantly rebuttaling them.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: But even just hearing someone's pain, like so much of our perspective shift that has made this a little easier is the idea of I can hear their pain and I'm not in the moment as they're sharing.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not listening to decide if they're right or wrong.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just listening to be with them and care about the pain they're experiencing.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm not doing is climbing up in that, um, what's it called?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: The judges are the oh man, I cannot remember the name in the courtroom.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: The defendant, no.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is it called when you darn it?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: I feel very annoyed at my brain right now.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was like on the tip of it and I can't think.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: A witness, the witness stand.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's like when I'm not listening to friends bring me pain, it's not feedback that I'm failing or I'm guilty.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I just care about their heart.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Whether or not I'll in phase two, I'll take it to the Lord and be like, hey, where is the feedback?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do I not reflect you in this?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: What's them?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: What's me?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, what do you want to point out and what's my takeaway?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I let the Holy Spirit be that source.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then if there's something that I'm like, man, I really don't see this, but they see they feel it so strongly.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll ask a third-party friend, like, hey, do you think I feel let me give you a real life example that Jenna has gotten feedback from friends with.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I interrupt people a lot.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm aware that I do that.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've been trying to grow out of that.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also aware that that's a big part of my ADHD.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm not purposely trying to do is send people the message that my ideas matter more than them.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is actually an impulse control, but I know that a lot of people, even if that's not my heart, feel like I feel disvalued when I interrupt them.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then taking it to a third-party friend rather than the friend who's in pain and is going to see it very, you know, black and white from their perspective, be like, have you experienced how do you experience me like this?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't have to bring up the actual experience or what they shared at all.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm like, hey, I wonder if there's like more validity here than I'm seeing asking a third party for feedback about that part of how people other people experience me.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to bring in the other person or their, you know, solution or pain at all.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: You could actually go.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that though.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: How friendship gives us the space to practice and notice the areas we need to grow in patience, the areas we need to grow in humility, the areas we need to grow in our ability to give mercy and limitless grace and forgiveness.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're all traits.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like again, if friendship's kind of where our Christ-like character is formed, then discomfort can't be a sign that to get out of the fire.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or I don't know, I mix my metaphors here.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: But again, this just goes with the whole idea of losing the consumerism approach.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: You almost have to reshape what the purpose of friendship is.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is it for me and what I get and how I feel, or is it actually a tool to form me more in Christ?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh, then my perspective of is it worth it?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do I stay?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you have a whole different measuring stick of the purpose of friendship if you shift your perspective.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I wish I had knew that in the 20s because I would sort through and keep friends or not keep friends based on how they made me feel.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it was just it was subconsciously an egocentric approach to the work I would put in with friends.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's you're not, you're not if you're gonna lose your consumerism reproach, here's my little list of um what you have to go after.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're not approaching friendships as what I need.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: You have to recalibrate your perspective to see them as targets to aim love at versus sources.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because the beautiful spot is that then I'm not disappointed when I'm not looking at the for the equ equitableness.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Equitable, y'all.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why are words hard today?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: I guess they're if I almost feel shout out to my friend Joy or some of my friends who listen often to my podcast, they're probably like, Jenna, words are often hard in the kindest way possible, reminding me that probably today is not unique.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, uh, I hope that made you laugh, Joy.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, losing the oh yes, thinking of them as targets for me to aim my love at, not sources.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whew, that's a big switch taking off the consumerism lens of friendship.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I actually literally think about friends, you know, like um if you've ever shot a bow and arrow and you're aiming at a target, let's think cartoon-wise.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of times the targets look a little less cartoony nowadays in real life, but imagine like a bullseye with red and white stripes, like a really classic bullseye.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about friends as targets of your love, it's like what you're aiming yourself at versus when we have the consumerism approach, we are having it's almost like they're their faucet and we're coming up with our cups.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: This expectation for them to fill us, to give us something.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna leave with?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna feel?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are they gonna tell me?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: How are they gonna encourage me?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it does what it's not saying is that doesn't not happen.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like that does happen in friendship.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if we're counting and noticing, are they as investing as much as I am?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Are they as encouraging as I am?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are they, do they reach out as much as I am?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's when you've lost the helpful perspective of friendship, and it'll you're it's kind of like you're no longer hitting the mark of what friendship was meant to, like what God's purpose for friendship was for us.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I literally have a mug in my hand right now.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was imagining they're when we're losing, they're not targets for you to, or they're I misspoke.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're not your source.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I have this mug, and I'm like, they're not where I'm meant to, like, oh, we're hanging out with Susie today.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: What does she have to give me?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: What is she gonna, what am I gonna walk away with?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like waiting for the faucet to turn on, and there's like four drips, and you're like, okay, so you leave that.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is it worth doing coffee with with Susie if I just walk away with four drips?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if Susie, wow, is that worth it, that friendship?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Versus like, what am I gonna give Susie?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what am I, what does the Holy Spirit say about Susie?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want to like leave Susie with?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a shift in your perspective.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Bob Goff just has a great metaphor that I love, and he's like, We're called to be rivers of love, which means a constant outpouring of flow, not reservoirs, which we live in an area that has a couple man-made dams.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I literally live, I bike past a dam all the time, which I'm realizing now is pretty unique.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I included it in the podcast.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't really have much to do with friendship, but I bet you don't bike by a dam.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: My claim to fame that I have nothing to do with.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, anyways, that when water's dammed up, it's to conserve it so that you control the flow.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, on some level, I mean, there's so many fights in California legislation about the flow of water and who's controlling the water.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which I'm curious.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, did you guys know that?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so many of the things we vote on is like Southern California and Northern California deciding who actually can control water rights and all the things.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: But that is the consumerism report approach to friendship.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is thinking of your what you have to give, the love, the identity, the comfort, the encouragement as a reservoir, which means it's a limited source.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a limited resource.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that like I have to almost like what's the word, hoard.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have to control and sparingly decide who I'm giving things out to because it's a limited source.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're a river, which what we're called to be because we're actually like it's not coming from who we are.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Our source is actually him.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if we're actually tapped into, we know who we are, we have unlimited identity and care.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have so much to give.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that we're not managing the flow of where it's going, but we don't, we lose the scarcity mindset that so many people approach in friendship when consumerism is like, do I get enough to keep giving there?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Where it's like, if I'm a river, I'm not actually, it's never like the river turns off like a faucet, you know?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like I am living open-handed.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I love this quote of one to I forget, I think I was talking to a friend a couple weeks ago.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, I know my sweet friend Britney, she's a local lady in Reading, and she had a birthday recently, and her birthday parties are the most well-attended events, like truly her birthday parties, her baby showers, 30 to 40 people, easy.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody at that party, oh, I feel so happy thinking about Brittany, loves Britney and thinks that Britney is one of her best friends, but not like in a delusional way.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like everybody knows that Britney's birthday party is gonna have 30 or four friends.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And no one is surprised or confused.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: What it reflects is how well Britney loves other people.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Britney is not snobby, she's not out there collecting friends, she's not trying to like pad her portfolio of people who like her.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: The reason Britney's parties are so well attended is she's totally lost her consumerism approach to friendship.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she just loves people.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I feel I feel dearie.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Brittany, I might send this to you because you do such a good job.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: The reason she's so, if you would say, popular by her well-attended birthday parties, and also they're really fun.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think her party this year was a sparkly cowboy theme.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: So lots of fun dress-up opportunities for us whimsical adults.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the reason her she's one of the most popular people, or she has the most friends, it's not about popularity.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about cool, though Britney is cool and she's kind, but she's so kind and she actually sees everybody who's in front of her, from your kid to the teacher.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: She can tell you facts about staff members at our kids go to the same school that I didn't know about.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what that shows about Britney is she's not trying to impress me.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: She actually just loves a radical lover of people.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: She is a constant river wherever she goes.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: She sees people as targets for her love, her like to be seen, to be encouraged, to be known.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: All of those perspectives that if we're in consumer mindset, we're like, did in our cup, did we leave with those for what that person left us with?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: But when we lose that, we're like, did we leave those?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: The people we left with, did they leave feeling known, seen, encouraged, you know, valued?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there is she told me, Britney specifically, because I was telling her, I was like, one of the things I love about your birthday parties is they're so well intended because you're so loved.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not a popularity contest, it's just because you love so many people.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when it's a chance to show up for you, it's their honor to reciprocate what you so freely pour out.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I feel I feel teary.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love Britney.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she told me about this study she found that I think it was like um they were it was behavior scientists who were doing kind of a study on the most popular kids in high school and in college.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she was saying, because I had told her I was like, it's just your parties are so well attended because you love so well.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is not because people, I mean, you are cool, but it is because you love people so well, so then they love you well.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is like a reciprocation of what you give.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she said that the study found, the behavior scientists found that the most popular students at school were not what we would think as the popular ones.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't the it the commonality was not that they were the cheerleaders or did all the activities that we would see in an American, like, you know, stereotypical movie.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually that they they were the ones who loved the most people.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: So they were the most loved because they loved the most.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I feel teary.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, wow, isn't that the perspective we want a friendship?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're not collecting people because we want to be well thought of, but it's because we love so much that it's like we aren't well loved, we love well, and that's the difference of consumers and mindset.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish I had lost.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: In my 20s, but at least the Lord gives us grace and I'm I'm operating a little differently in my 40s.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, friendship's just an investment of love, loving as radically and generously as you can.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think of it as um, okay, you're gonna laugh at this analogy.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Johnny Appleseed.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, stick out with me here.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: My mom was a first grade teacher, and for some reason I would have told you up until I went got to high school probably that Johnny Appleseed Day was as well known as Valentine's Day or Earth Day, which maybe Earth Day is a little more on par for most of you, but Johnny Appleseed Day was a celebrated holiday in our family, in our in our because she taught preschool in our home for a while, she taught private kindergarten for a while.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: So um I don't even remember, remember when this is.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: So oops, that's on me, not my mom.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: But what I rem the analogy I imagine is that he went, he walked around with a pack, like um a fanny pack, if you will, or like a satchel bag full of appleseeds.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he just his one job was or like his sole purpose was just to like literally scatter.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I imagine him just like handfuls of appleseeds, and I'm sure I'm mixing the analogy, and I'm sure my six-year-old brain is getting parts of the story right.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that the point is not for accuracy here.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Please do not fact-track my Johnny appleseed reference.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is more to get the mental picture of how I now want to show up in friendship instead of dropping one seed here or there sparingly.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I, if I believe that source of seeds, I feel like they're all seeds of love, is limitless because of what I'm connected to, who I know loves me, like if I'm connected to unlimited love, then that bag is going to be full of seeds because there's love never fails or ends, and there's no condition.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's limitless.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be someone who's throwing appleseeds wherever I go because Johnny Appleseed, it was almost like he left a trail of orchards, is kind of the mental picture I got as a six-year-old, because he so radically constantly made it his job to sow appleseeds.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: So then there was orchards, and like almost like I remember if you imagine like his foot trail, if you followed it on a map, there was just like hundreds of miles of apple trees.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Again, don't fact-check this, because he just that was his purpose is sowing seeds wherever he went.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, what if we looked at friendship like that?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where it was our opportunity to just be radical and everywhere, people could track all the schools that our kids went to because of how radically we loved those other moms and the kids in the classroom and the staff in that school and and the friendships, the every life group we're in.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: They could track that we had been there because we so radically loved the people in that group and we saw them and we left them feeling valued and encouraged.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it is no part because we're striving, it's just a natural overflow of who we're connected to.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think even the awareness for me in the seasons that that feels hard.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel ashamed, but it's probably evidence that I'm not as connected to my source, that I don't feel as valued or aware of how he sees me or how um how seen I am by him, how valuable I am to him, what he loves about me.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I'm full, when those cups are full from him, it's so easy to splash over on people because I'm seeing them the same way.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm seeing the same eyes that he has for me for them versus striving to be a good person.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's no striving, it's an overflow because of how connected I am to those things about me.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Good friends aren't found.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, what?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're formed through oh, through generously sewing love.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: I should have kept reading my own notes there.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone was tracking until Jeddah said good friends are not found.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And all the hope was lost.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: But good friends aren't found, they're formed through generously sewing love.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: So be like Johnny Appleseed, be like my friend Britney.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's lose our consumerism approach to friendship and let's actually make the goal of how well can we love those in front of us versus do they make us feel loved?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, more to come than this friendship series.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode one.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And book a coaching with me if you need some help.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: This was my ad.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot to say that earlier.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, bye, everybody.