Latest / Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden / Year One Rewind: Find Your People

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Year One Rewind: Find Your People · Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden

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  speaker-0 (00:02.242)
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  Welcome to MyRealm. I'm Tammy Jordan, and this is Butterfly Days, the podcast that proves you're not past your prime. You're living in it right now because women don't have expiration dates. Butterfly Days is a celebration of the extraordinary potential of Gen X and Boomer women. Throughout history, women have shared wisdom to uplift and empower one another. And you're about to learn hard-earned wisdom and best-kept secrets.
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  From interesting, inspiring women. So if you're ready to embrace your butterfly season with confidence, find joy in the present, and create a legacy that matters, you're in the right place. No more holding back. Let's spread our wings now. Here we go!
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  speaker-1 (00:56.226)
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  Welcome to another episode celebrating the first anniversary of the Butterfly Days podcast. This episode will highlight what some of my favorite guests taught us about finding your people. You know, you can't make new old friends. I always say that. And I've said it a lot this year, and I I mean it as a warning, not a poem, because the friendships that will carry you through your seventies and beyond are largely being built or neglected right now.
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  Today, and most of us are too busy to notice that. The research is not subtle on this. Loneliness does to your body what roughly a pack a day does. And for women who tend to outlive partners, this isn't a soft subject. It's an issue of infrastructure. Surely you can keep making friends as you go, but there's something stabilizing about the folks who go the distance. So today the women who know how this actually works will speak to you.
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  The lovely Florence Anne Romano, who wrote the book on building your village, will hand you the six people you could use in yours. Theo Boyd will talk to us about her fairy blonde mothers, who showed up when her whole world came apart. Alison Nazarowski, with a reminder that some of the most important people in your life are people you haven't yet met. The beautiful Anna Giannone, who built a family that includes her husband's ex-wife.
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  The incomparable Lauren Bane, Lindsay Goldstein, and Lisa Copeland. Get ready to take some notes, y'all.
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  speaker-2 (02:30.274)
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  The phrase itself, it takes a village to raise a child, as beautiful a proverb as that is, I believe it is very limiting. And I wanted to chop it in half and say it takes a village, period. Because what if you don't design your life with children? What if you never get married? What if you don't have those things that that traditionally fall under that proverb with raising a family?
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  Don't you also deserve to find your people, regardless of how you design your life? And the answer is yes. And so I wanted to be an answer to that question: accepting, dependable, cheerleader, communicator, organizer, and healer. I'm not saying that if you don't have all six of those people, that you are not a fully formed person.
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  I'm not saying that if you don't have all six right now, that that means that you don't have the right relationships. You may have four out of the six right now and say, I'm good. I feel great. I don't think I need anyone else right now. But there may come a time where you do need to add that fifth villager. And sometimes those are moments of crisis. Sometimes you know, you're going through a death or a divorce or something, and then that's when you see people kind of come in and and put their arms around you in that way.
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  but these six are meant to help you start getting an idea of the health of your relationship. The healer, not that I have favorites, but I do have a very special affinity to the healer. This is the person that walks next to you through whatever the it is in your life. But the important caveat is that they're not there to fix you.
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  speaker-4 (04:11.412)
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  I have a group of ladies, I call them my fairy blonde mothers. And they magically appear anytime things are bad. I may not talk to them for two or three months, but if I call them right now and said I need you to call me, they're they're on the phone.
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  And also, which I find interesting is the fact that there are people out there that you haven't even met yet that are going to be a very important part of your life. My friend Charlene, one of the Fairy Blonde Mothers, she said, I'm gonna be your morning and evening check-in. And I'm gonna tell you how much better you're gonna be on the other side of this because when I went through it years ago, she had breast cancer. I mean, some horrible things when her divorce happened. And she said, I had a lady do this for me.
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  So now I'm gonna do it for you.
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  speaker-2 (04:57.312)
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  Had a friend for many years, been friends since like kindergarten, and she's wonderful. I respect her in a lot of different ways. But she betrayed me at one point because I found out that she had repeated something to someone that I thought was in confidence. But I thought to myself, okay, the art one of the archetypes I'm gonna talk about right now is the accepting villager. This is
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  First person usually cast. It's the person you confide in, you can f confess a secret to. And I think for a long time I looked at her that way and probably talked to her about a lot of different things in my life. And I said to myself, after that betrayal happened, you know, maybe she's not the accepting villager. But I don't want to throw her out because I love her. So I took her out of that accepting villager role and I put her into a different role.
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  And that has completely changed my relationship with her. And that's what I'm looking for people to do here. I'm encouraging people to set your relationships up for success. And don't always think that you gotta get rid of people. You just might need to recast them. Think to yourself, okay, well, is this relationship no longer serving me? And if it's not, then how do I walk away from it? And the first thing I always tell people to do is would they even notice if you're gone? If you don't reach out.
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  anymore and you stop making those phone calls and you stop being present the way that you are. How long is it going to take for them to notice that? Are they going to notice?
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  speaker-5 (06:30.062)
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  I noticed my mom never really had close friends. Like she did here and there, but she never had many close friends. And I think it was because she prioritized, she had four kids, and she prioritized us. And it's not that I don't prioritize my kids, but I just break a balance of making sure that there's a lane that I can stay in of my own life so that one day when my kids are gone, I'm not
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  This is why I always say look with values and loves you just how you are. We're no longer spouse partners, but we're still parenting part the role of parenting still continues, but in a two-home concept.
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  speaker-4 (07:04.478)
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  I don't have a lot of
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  speaker-1 (07:16.984)
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  Sure.
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  speaker-4 (07:18.104)
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  Someone that shares your value.
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  speaker-5 (07:29.058)
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  We're there to help this child spread his or her wings so they can become beautiful, amazing adults in this society. This is what we need. So it's our responsibility as a parent to keep doing what we gotta do.
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  speaker-2 (07:44.724)
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  If you are looking to make connections and you're looking to find people that are like-minded, have similar values, but you're a little gun shy about you know putting yourself out there, it's a little intimidating, tapping someone on the shoulder and be you want to be my friend. And that's not what I'm telling you to do. I'm saying find something that makes your heart flutter. You know, we're supposed to live our life in service of others in one way or another, whatever that means to you. So why don't you throw that in Google and take a look at what exists in your community?
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  show up somewhere that you're worthy of connection, you're worthy of love. And if you were not born into the village that you wish you had been, that you can design that for yourself.
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  speaker-1 (08:26.446)
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  Florence Ann says something near the end that I want to make sure that you caught. If you were not born into the village you wish you had, you can design that for yourself. That's an enormous claim. And the reason I believe it is Anna. This is a woman who called her husband's ex-wife and asked her to copy. They bravely admitted they were a little jealous of each other. They chose peace instead. And today they spend holidays together and take vacations together.
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  And they kept doing it even after Anna's husband died. If that's possible, then whatever you're facing in your own circle is possible too. And if you don't know where to start, take Florence's answer. Find something that makes your heart flutter and go volunteer for it. You'll be standing in a room full of people who already care about what you care about. And that's a powerful connection. That's not networking. That's how we create authentic.
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  connections. So this is my benediction for you. May you see the beauty of loving and being loved by people with true hearts. May you honor yourself by being the kind of friend you wished you could have. And may you know the comfort of dear friends over time and across miles to walk each other home. And remember, I'm rootin' for you.
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  speaker-0 (09:52.046)
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  I'm so grateful you listened to this episode.
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  I hope it was a real value to you. If there's a sister in your life who needs this message, please share it. Just like women have done to lift each other up over the centuries and across cultures. Women lifting each other is so important. It's why I do this work. And to avoid FOMO and keep up leveling your own life, make sure you don't miss the next episode. You may be losing hormones, but your life has given you powerful perspective. And I
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  I believe you have something to give that no one else does, that the world needs. So remember, I'm rooting for you. Let's go!