Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 53: One Man ≠ Community, Sis

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Ep. 53: One Man ≠ Community, Sis · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.
• 0:26
  And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Hello world, Brianna is here trying to summon energy. I'm in deep concentration mode. Summon. Bring forth the energy.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Now half of our Christian audience has tuned out.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I'm so tired. Like, just Mondays into Tuesdays are really hard for me because I work really late into Monday, and then I have to get up early on Tuesday.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: So nice turn and burn, burn and turn. I don't know. No. She She gets
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: home at, like, 08:00 on Monday nights. It's crazy. Well,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of that's my own doing. But
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: regardless, I'm tired. I see, here's the thing, guys. If we were responsible adult humans,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: which we are not, we would record this, you know, like a day ahead or A day ahead. No.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Not a day ahead. That's how I meant.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: You need to summon energy too.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Like, a week ahead or we had this plan where we were gonna record, like, a month of podcasts in one day and then, you know, spread out the editing and whatever. And have we done that?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: No. I still think we should. I think it's a great idea. It's just that my brain is like if you were to do a quick lobotomy on me, it would just like ooey gooey oo like slime. Would just leak out.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Well, was just a truly horrifying image.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about that book that our aunt was telling us about. Oh, okay. So guys,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: we read some wild books. I'll be fully honest with you.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, I read a book where a man turned into a shark.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: And a cat. And a cat. And she has a book where women turn into dragons.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I have a vibe.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: But I always assume that our very, very conservative family will be reading, you know, like, the the Christian historical fiction, and that's all they read. That's what's in my brain.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Maybe we should back up. They're not very, very conservative compared to, like, the the Duggars. True? Quite true. They're not true.
• 2:47
  Yeah. I mean, they go to the movies.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Anyway, so we were at Easter, and we're talking about books, because a bunch of us brought our books, because we're all readers now, as it turns out. And our aunt is sitting there and she's like, hey, guys. Let me tell you about this story that I read.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: This Christian fiction book.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: It was Christian I think it was Colleen Kobel.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And she was talking about how it was, like, what, a serial killer?
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: No, I don't maybe. It must have been. Yeah, it must have been.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: And he was like, his wife died and he was trying to recreate his wife?
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: No, his wife was burned in some kind of fire and she needed a face transplant. So he was going around trying to find someone with similar features to her and then kill them and transplant their face onto her face.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: And I gotta just tell you, that is way more off the deep end than anything I've ever read.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Gosh. I'm looking at my shelf of books right now of things that I've read, and I've I've read some weird things. Nothing like that. No. Nothing compares to that.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I read a surprising amount of, like, fantasy books where every fantasy book is a war. There's always a war.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: There's always war and elves and fairies.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: And a surprising amount of death, but nothing like that. Nope. Now I have not read Butcher and Blackbird, which I think is about serial killers.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Serial killers that fall in love. But I don't I I don't think we should endorse that or recommend that.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Well, I haven't read it, so I can't I can't do anything about it. But I have seen it at Target.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: It has the cutest cover. It does. It's black and pink.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: A very cute cover. I feel like it would look gray on my bookshelf, but I'm frightened of it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I think you need, like, a whole black and pink shelf because you have a lot of books that are black and pink.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I have one series that's black and pink.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I feel like you've had many books. It's three books. Black and pink.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Three books in total. But we've taken to trying, like, to make books our personality, I feel like. And we're attempting to make friends in the book community.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a book club down the road from us.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And we're being very brave. I know. Have we signed up for it yet? No.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: But we've thought about it, and that's brave.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: It starts next month, so you guys can ask next month whether or not we have followed through, which frankly, it
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: could go either way. They're reading a classic, So they're reading Emma. And that's always a little bit more difficult to get through, but
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: There were several options, but that was the only date that worked for us.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Oh. So Well, I'm glad that you guys know that now. Is this interesting content for you?
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: But my point was I was I was transitioning, Brie.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Oh. We were And you need to summon energy. Okay. Hold on. Oh.
• 5:43
  That's
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: opposite. Okay.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: You need, a song in your head, like, big and big. Wow.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Did that wake everyone else up? It did not wake me up. We went to Bigby today. Yeah. We switched it up.
• 5:57
  Yeah. Normally, we're Starbucks girlies, in case you weren't aware. But we went to Bigby today, and I tried to order what I thought would be, like, a Starbucks refresher.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I'm just telling you that was a stupid order.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: It turns out what it was.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: It wasn't like a refresher. It was like Starbucks version of remember when they came out with those energy refreshers?
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: That's what it was.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: They're bad. They were bad. Starbucks and they're bad at Big B.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: It was bad. It was not a good time.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: It just tasted like they cracked open an energy drink and poured it over ice.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then put, like, extra flavoring in it. It was bad. It was not good. But anyway, back to how we're trying to be social.
• 6:37
  Because this was a good transition for me. I just
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: got distracted.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: There you go. She caught on. Yeah. Go ahead. So we're trying to, like, branch out because Brie and I have each other.
• 6:47
  Mhmm. And that's about it. We have, like, other friends. Don't worry. But we're trying to branch out and Mhmm.
• 6:57
  And this week, we're talking a little bit about that. Brie was very intense about wanting to talk about female friendships. So intense. Can you feel her intensity? White hot energy.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe we could, instead of white hot energy, we could just it could be ASMR. You've tried this before. We're talking about female friendships today.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: No, they don't like that. We're Stammit! We're talking about female friendships today. I have had to cut out ASMR from almost every single episode.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: I love it. There's just something so satisfying about talking into a microphone and having your headphones in, and you hear little clicks and clacks. I just really like it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, then you can start your own ASMR channel. However, until then, I don't think I've ever heard of an ASMR podcast. That would be That
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: be that makes total sense to me. I don't need to see you. Until then, talk about female friendships, Brian. Today, we're talking about female friendships. And I was inspired to do this by none other than TikTok.
• 8:12
  We're so shocked. I know. Because right now, really, what's popular and trendy, you see, like now maybe this is out of date. Maybe I'm out of touch. But Wicked Mhmm.
• 8:25
  The whole press tour for Ariana Grande and Cynthia Rivo, people were commenting on how close they were. Mhmm. And then also you see Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. There's like a sound bite of I forgot her name. Who did I just say?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Jane Fonda?
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Jane Fonda talking about how important her female friendships are in her life, specifically with Lily Tomlin because they've been friends for fifty years.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I know. Did you guys watch that show?
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: What was it called? Grace and Frankie? Yes. Yeah. I loved that show.
• 8:58
  I had someone who consistently in my life that called it Frankie and Grace, and I hate him. I was like, that's wrong. Not that I even watched that show, but I was like, that's wrong.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It is a good show. You would like that show.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: But there's something special about female friendships. And, scientifically, they're super important in women's lives. There was a study I looked it up on the National Library of Medicine, and this is a study from 2022, so not that long ago. But they were studying the effects of female friendships with people that were dealing with substance abuse. It showed that women who had close female friendships in their life, it boosted their social support, their self esteem, their hope, their optimism, their power, which all contributed to them kind of dealing with this substance abuse in a more positive way.
• 9:52
  And also, did you know being alone and loneliness is worse for your body than smoking cigarettes?
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: That frightens me because I enjoy loneliness.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Alone again. Naturally.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: That's an old I think anybody that has women, if you have a close female friendship and sometimes it can be hard for people to create those relationships, but if you have that person that's your close, close person, none of this is surprising. Like, to say, Yes, it gives them more confidence. Of course it does. Because that person is your person.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Someone just to build you up with wild confidence. It just empowers you to not be so afraid. I heard Katherine Hahn say, like, walk hand in hand into the future together or something like that. But just I love that visual of walking hand in hand with someone into those tough situations Mhmm.
• 10:50
  That you don't really wanna handle alone.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's so different because people will talk about, like, your romantic partner should be that for you, particularly, I think, in Christian circles. Yeah. We devalue female friendships. We devalue really any friendships Mhmm. In order to put a relationship with our partner, like, on a pedestal.
• 11:10
  Like, it is the most important thing in the world. And of course, it's important if you have a partner, but this hits different.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Like, female friendships hit different. There's an intimacy to them that I feel like a lot of times you don't get in romantic partnerships. Mhmm. I think a lot of it is that you teach people how to treat you Mhmm. In a lot of ways.
• 11:35
  And if you don't expect your romantic partner to share in those little details of your life or build you up with outrageous optimism and confidence, then you're not really gonna get that. You don't expect that of someone else.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Even if you do, for those of us in straight relationships, I suppose, my experience with most men is that they don't see that level of confidence building as as important as women Because one of my goals in life is to whenever I see whether it's at a drive through or whatever, if I see someone in a cute outfit, if I see that their makeup looks great, if they, you know, are so, so sweet, just to compliment them. Mhmm. Because I know how important it is. You don't and part of this is just how, like, it can be a little creepy when men do this. But, like, men don't that's not valued in the same way with men, at least the men that I've come in contact with.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Anything I feel like that's considered feminine, I think is associated with frivolousness, if that's a word. But that includes female friendships. People think that it's frivolous. Going to get your nails done or going to get a massage or anything that you associate with like feminine traits is frivolous and pointless, but it's not. It's building those relationships with people, and that's super important, making connections.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. This is totally an offshoot, but I've been thinking about that in relation to this concept. And if you guys are on TikTok, you've definitely heard it. But this concept of girl math?
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. It's absolutely everywhere? I'm sorry. We've all heard of We're all doing it. Now I
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: think it's hilarious, but I also think it's really interesting from, like, a feminist standpoint. Mhmm. Because it's exactly what you said. Things that are feminine are frivolous. Right?
• 13:38
  Mhmm. So we're talking about, like, if you haven't heard of girl math, it'll be something like, oh, well, I saved $30 on my purchase today. So I saved $30, not I spent dollars
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: It's just a way of justifying your spending. Yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But we call it girl math, and we laugh about it, and we look down on it. And in my mind, I see it as a way of making women into frivolous Yeah. Smaller people. Yeah.
• 14:10
  So that's just like, it doesn't exactly relate to female friendships necessarily. Right.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: But I see that definitely for sure. For sure. For sure. Something that I looked up on YouTube was this person named One moment. Danielle Jackson.
• 14:34
  She is a friendship coach. Oh, which is so interesting to me because you don't think that that is a necessary position in this world. But in the world that we're in today, I think that is a legitimate job. Because she was saying, like, people don't know how to build friendships anymore and healthy friendships. She specifically focuses on, like, female friendships.
• 15:00
  She talks about the benefits of female friendship, not only being emotional support, obviously, but physical support. Women specifically have stress responses are fight or flight, but women also have tend or befriend. So you either go and care for others in a situation of stress, or you gather together with people who are in a stressful situation, like you're part of that group, or you're taking care of that group.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: When you have that stress response, it increases your oxytocin and decreases your cortisol, which is your stress hormone. Your oxytocin is your love hormone. So when you're under tender befriend, you have love and connection and bonding.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I think of it like Brie and I, and obviously we have been together since she was born. I had a good two and a half years without her. Sorry. But when she was born, we've been been together for so very, very many years. All of Bree's ninety seven years, for sure.
• 16:05
  All ninety eight now.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. But
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite things to do when I'm stressed out, when I'm overwhelmed, when the day has just worn on me And we live in the same house, so this makes it easier. But I come and I flop on Bree's bed. And a lot of times, I just read a book, and she reads a book, and we're just in the same vicinity. But to have someone in your life that you can just be fully comfortable to talk, to not talk, but to feel safe around is really significant.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's a lot easier when you're a kid because a lot of friendships is just proximity to each other and how often you're around each other. So when you're in school, you're around those people all the time. It's not necessarily about liking someone. Mhmm. It's just about you're around them.
• 16:56
  But when you get a little bit older, it's a little bit harder. It is harder. Because you have the people that you work with. If you work in an environment with other people, a lot of people work from home now, but Cough, cough. It's me.
• 17:07
  You don't always want to be best friends with someone that you work with because you just end up talking about work stuff all the time. So you need someone kind of set apart from that who cares about you on a personal level, not just a professional level. I care about you personally.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you. You better.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: And professionally. You don't have to do that. Have you heard about the male loneliness epidemic? No, but that makes sense. Oh my gosh.
• 17:36
  They're saying that there's an epidemic of male loneliness because women are starting to realize not that they don't need men but they're starting to value their female friendships more. And I just think it's bizarre. We're decentering men. Yeah. Men were not raised, at least in
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the generation and the area that I live in, the men that I know were not raised to value close, close friendships.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And I saw that really distinctly because obviously, like, I'm I'm a woman. I I was raised differently, which is odd. But I noticed it for the first time when I got married to my husband because he is someone that creates really deep relationships. He just holds on to people. He's a pursuer.
• 18:28
  He For sure.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: He is. Even if you try to run away from him,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: he's like, nope. No. He's gonna be your best friend, and there's nothing you can do about it.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I'm your best friend.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I'm done. But he creates those really deep relationships, and I noticed how different that was than a lot of the other men in my sphere.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: That they were not doing that. That they even maybe thought that was odd to create those deep bonds because it's not manly to like open up to other men And that makes it harder for anyone to connect with them. Yeah. It makes it harder for them to connect with each other, and it makes it harder for women to feel that valuable connection with whether it's your partner, whether it's a friend, whether it like, any man in your space or any anyone in your space, if they can't reciprocate that deep connection, it starts to feel like, why am I putting so much effort into this?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Did you listen to the TikTok that I played today? And I reposted it on our TikTok. But talking about how romance is a feminine language. And not necessarily like romantic, but women are taught to care about, like, birth dates and little details of your life just picking up on things that you like and you dislike and responding to the things that are important to you. And men aren't typically taught that.
• 20:01
  They're taught to care about themselves and their interests. You see that even, you know, the older generations, the woman is always responsible for birthday gifts and the dad goes,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're welcome. Right? And it's like a funny joke.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Or men forgetting about anniversaries or not knowing what their wife's favorite XYZ is, you But we find that in our female relationships. I'm gonna figure out your birthday and I'm gonna celebrate it and I'm going to know your favorite color and I'm gonna buy you something of that favorite color,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you I'll show up at your house with your favorite coffee. Yeah. Yeah. And when you find that, that does become a center of your world in a big Because
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: you feel seen. Right.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And that makes you feel safe. And that should, for all of you parents out there, that should make us wonder why we're not raising boys this way too. Exactly. Because I and I when I I'm sure I've said this before, but when I had my son, I kind of panicked because I was like, I know how to raise a girl. I know how to raise a strong woman.
• 21:14
  I don't have any idea how to raise a boy. And people kept telling me, Oh, it's so different. It's so different to raise a boy. Now, it is different, but not because he's a boy. It's different because he's a different person than my daughter.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: But I it hit me one day. I know how to raise a strong adult person. That's what I know how to do. Mhmm. It doesn't have to be that she's a girl and now I have to raise a different person who's a boy.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Like Mhmm.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: It can just be I know how to raise a strong, caring adult person. I suppose they're not adults yet. They're quite small. A strong, caring person. And I can do it the same way.
• 21:55
  But so many parents are afraid to raise their sons feminine. And so they don't teach them to care about those little details.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Because, again, femininity is equivalent with weakness in our society. Mhmm. That's what it looks like. And that's not true. That's something that we've decided as a culture.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Well, it's down to the silliest things like pink is for girls and blue is for boys is also something that we simply decided.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Because back in the day, pink was a masculine color. Mhmm.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it was, I think, card companies, I wanna say, that decided on it because they wanted to sell more stuff. But we could raise boys to be like this, to have these deep, incredible friendships, whether it's with each other, that will strengthen their relationship with their partner should they choose to have one, with any other women they come across.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And how much more powerful as a society we can be when we value relationships. And there's a
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: way to teach people how to have those relationships too. It's like being super positive is important. That's why we keep saying build each other up with outrageous confidence. You have to be positive. If you're always a downer and dragging someone down, I feel like that attracts more negativity Mhmm.
• 23:14
  All the time. People want some positivity because it makes you feel accepted. Mhmm. And that's super important. You also need consistency.
• 23:23
  This is all from a TED Talk that I read. That you read? You read a TED Talk? I watched it. Shut up.
• 23:32
  Consistency is really important, which is hard when you're older, but you can get creative with it, I think. Because women are really notorious with being like, Oh, we should get together. We should get together.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh. I'm the worst about that.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I'm so bad. But, I mean, you just have to have some kind of consistency. Maybe that's sending each other TikToks. But just maintaining some kind of connection, I think, is important because that does build trust. And then being vulnerable with each other is super important.
• 24:06
  Being able to have that person where you can talk about what you need with someone and not feel judged about it. Man.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And it's important, I think now this is not part of the TED talk. This is part of the Alyssa talk. But I think it's important to find the right person for that. Yeah. Because I know, like, for me, I struggle to have non deep relationships.
• 24:35
  Like, if I if it's a surface level relationship, I'm kinda like, why am I bothering? Mhmm. So I'll try and create these deep relationships with people, and I've been burned by that before. Yeah. So it's important to find the right person that, yeah, is gonna build you up with crazy positivity and that you can then in turn build up with crazy positivity when they're hurting that's gonna be just as consistent with you as you are with them.
• 25:02
  And if you're not finding that in someone, it's okay to say, okay, we can still be, like, casual friends, but this is not my person.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I think that you're right. That's super important because there are people in my life that I feel super comfortable around, like you, obviously. One would hope. You know? Where you can just be super serious one second and be super silly the next and just bounce back and forth between those two.
• 25:26
  It doesn't always have to be super serious. But there are definitely people in my life too that I've noticed like, hey, I'm trying to talk to you. I'm telling my story. I need you to hear me. I need you to be supportive right now.
• 25:38
  And they're just thinking about themselves. They don't really circle back to anything that was important to you or they belittle what you find important. Those people aren't the best people to be best friends with.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: It's so important, especially as adults who have limited amounts of time Mhmm. To find the right people to let in. Because personally, from the standpoint of trying to raise children and trying to have a job and trying to, you know, do all these little things that we do as adults throughout the day
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Maintaining friendships that aren't worth your time, that's the flip side of this, is female friendships are so powerful and incredible. But maintaining friendships that are not valuable to you.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. You don't need a million friends. No. They say that you become a product of the five people that you spend the most time with. So you just need five.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Frankly, maybe not even. Maybe not even five. It depends on the type of personality that you are because I know some people need a lot of people. Now I don't think you need 20 people. But some people thrive on bigger groups of people.
• 26:52
  But then for me, and I think for you too, it's select few that are really close with and there might be some people on the periphery that you're, you know, friendly with and whatever, and that's fine. But the people that you really your soul connects with, it tends to be minimal.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I think my default when I'm in, like, a big crowd of people is be, like, silly goofy, but never truly very real. I don't wanna open up because there's too many people, too many judgments. Mhmm. I don't wanna show you who I really am, so I'm gonna be hilarious. She is hilarious.
• 27:26
  I'm pretty good at that.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I think that's a totally standard response. I think most people in big groups clam up. And that's why it's hard it is so hard to find friendships in the first place. Mhmm. Because on the one hand, big groups stressful because you don't have to sit and talk one on one with Yeah.
• 27:48
  Then on the other side, are you ever really gonna get to know someone that way? And maybe you can use it as a jumping off point. There's no, like, good or bad here.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. But I
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: think that is it's a difficult, like, catch 22, you know?
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I think you need to find those people in your life and pursue them.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Actually, so I was trying to think of any female friendships in the bible because if this is your first episode, we are we are
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: a Christian feminist podcast. Even though I was trying to summon energy at the beginning.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: And there aren't a lot. We don't see a lot of women interacting with women. There are a couple of times. There's Ruth and Naomi, but that's less of a really close friendship and more like a I married your son and then he Yeah. And so I was trying to think through other female interactions that we get to see.
• 28:41
  I also thought of Deborah and JL, but we don't really see them together. They're in the they're part of the same story, but they're not necessarily interacting a lot. Except for I think when Deborah says, have you seen this dude? And JL says, yeah. I have a tent peg through his head over there.
• 28:58
  Hey, bestie. I killed
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: someone. Quick quick sidebar. Sidebar. He's dead. We talked about Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna.
• 29:11
  I don't know how close they were, but the three of them are named all altogether.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, though, we did an episode on Mary, the mother of Jesus, because there's 7,000,000,000 Marys in the bible.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, I know what you're gonna say. Yeah. And I'm listening to the podcast, are you?
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: She's not though. I'm not. She never listens. Hey, I thought we were done with ASMR. Whatever.
• 29:34
  So Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her cousin Elizabeth. And that's one of the few times that I'm aware of. Now if you guys can think of other ones, would love to hear about it. On our TikTok or our Instagram, you can message us or comment. But Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, we see Mary right after she finds out that she's pregnant, that she's gonna have Jesus.
• 29:58
  That she kind of I mean, now this is me reading into the story a little bit, and we did an episode on her. You guys can go back and listen to it. But she kind of freaks out. And who wouldn't? I mean, I would.
• 30:11
  I did when I was actually pregnant. I didn't. Because Brie won't birth anything. Yeah. Nothing.
• 30:19
  But she freaks out and she goes on a journey and it's like a multi day trip and she goes to see her cousin Elizabeth who turns out is also pregnant And they just hang out for quite a while. Like months. Yeah, for several months. And then now and again, this is reading into the story a
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: little bit, but Who doesn't?
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: But they spend all this time together, and then Mary comes back calm, cool, and collected. You know? Mhmm. Maybe not completely, but she goes out there freaking out. And then she comes back with outrageous confidence.
• 30:57
  Mhmm. She comes back more relaxed. She comes back ready to take on the next thing. And I think that's such a great picture of female friendships and female relationships. Mhmm.
• 31:09
  She she didn't go to Joseph with this. I mean, obviously, like, Joseph knows.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: But she didn't go to him. She didn't go to her father, who societally probably would have been Mhmm. The person that you go to. She goes to another woman.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: And that is what kind of restores her soul. I can think of so many times in my life that I have just been underwater, and you feel like you're drowning and everything is so important and so big and being able to either talk to you or mom or, you know, some of our aunts, anybody. And it just brings you back down to reality. Like, this is not the most important thing. You'll get through this.
• 31:58
  You've been through this before. Just, like, someone to speak those truths to you and remind you who you are and that it's okay and that they'll be with you if you Like, even someone who can help you like I wrote some of your papers in college for French.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: She did she did do that. I also wrote some of her papers. Don't tell our colleges. They'll retroactively take away our degrees.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Well, think we're the same person, so it's fine.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: It's fine. Frankly, I'm absolutely certain that if you walked into one of my classes, they'd be like, Hey Alyssa, how's it going? And it would take them a second.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I am Alyssa. I am Brianna. Hear me Roar. Yeah.
• 32:37
  That's the message. You're us,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: roar. You're us, roar. I just think it does ground you. And it grounds you in a way that, again, back to if you have a partner in your life, that that just that relationship can't do in the same way. Because a lot of times your partner is going through similar things to what you're going through.
• 32:59
  Yeah. You know, if you've lost a job, then your family has lost income and your partner is also struggling. Any of the big situations, like, it's likely affecting them too. And so it's hard, even if you have a great, really open relationship, it's hard for that person to pour into you in the same way that a friendship can pour into you who's a little bit more removed from the situation.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Sometimes you just need someone not in that bubble Mhmm. To come pop it. You know? That was a gross metaphor.
• 33:32
  You're okay. He did that. I think we've said this before on the podcast, but there's some kind of statistic where most husbands would say that their wife is their best friend. Mhmm. But not a lot of women would say that their husbands are their best friends.
• 33:52
  And I think it's important to tell men it's okay to go make a friend. You know? Someone that's, like, good and will be beneficial to your life. But you need other people. You need other support.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Well, as Christians, as, like, Protestant Christians, I think we like I said, we've put marriage and that relationship up on such a pedestal of, like, this is the only important thing. Mhmm. Your relationship with your spouse is just the only relationship you should ever care about, and they have to be number one in your life from now until the day you die.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: And it's just straight up not. Like, the Bible tells us the most important thing is to love each other and go spread the news.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: You know? Again, you can't do that if you're stuck in your bubble. You need to make those close friendships with people. You need to show them the love of God. Mhmm.
• 34:52
  You need to be that light. You need to show people that you care and allow people to care about you. Mhmm.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And I think if you're so stuck, and I've seen this with women in many a church, they're so stuck on, I really can only maintain this one relationship with their partner because it's a lot of freaking work. It's demanding. Right. And especially because women so often are the main ones maintaining that relationship.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Yeah, like, you have a one-sided relationship. It's not gonna get very far.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. And if that's all you have first of all, it's very hard to take on another relationship, like a if your marriage relationship is taking everything out of you. Mhmm. Now, if you're in that sort of situation, it's important to talk to a therapist, to deal with that, to open up lines of communication.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Expect more. Yeah. And demand more. You need your partner to be putting just as much into the relationship as you are. And that means those little details, not just broad strokes.
• 36:06
  You know, you need someone who cares about those birth dates, and you shouldn't be maintaining their relationship with their family and so on and so forth, and what have you.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, we reached a point where I used to I did used to buy all the Christmas presents and the birthday presents because that's what I grew up as the expectation for a Christian wife. Mhmm. There was a short time there where I was attempting to be that. It was, four days. But I would buy all the Christmas presents for my family for his family all the birthday presents for my family for his family and I hit a point where I was like I can't anymore I simply can't and because my husband is great and we have a good relationship, when I did that, he was like, oh, yeah.
• 36:55
  Well, take that. Like, I'm I've got that. So, yeah, expect that of your partner. Expect if you drop a ball that they're if you drop something, then they're gonna pick it up and handle what you can't. And when you have a relationship like that that is more free flowing, that is more leaning on each other, you're going to have time to build other friendships,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: to
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: build a relationship with the women in your life Mhmm. That's gonna be fulfilling on a different level. Yeah.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: And for my single people out there, I know so many of us are feeling like the only important thing is like a romantic relationship, but you can find that intimacy in a lot of other places. And female friendships are so important. They build you with that confidence. They fill you with that, like, feeling seen and understood and safe. You don't need necessarily a romantic partner to fulfill that in you.
• 38:00
  Mhmm.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: And hey. When you go on fun adventures with your best best girlfriends Yeah. You can go on some great adventures. Brie and I have gone on some great adventures.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I cannot tell you how much I I just genuinely love being single. I'm not talking to anybody else about how I wanna spend my time. If I wanna read a book all day long, it's
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: just me. It doesn't matter. You say that like I don't barrel into your room every morning and say, need a coffee. Or, hey. Let's go shopping.
• 38:33
  Well, I'm always down. But because Brie and I have very similar tastes, and likely with the friendships that you create, you would have similar tastes to those people as well. Brie and I go to Broadway style shows all the time Mhmm. That my husband wouldn't necessarily enjoy. It's not that he wouldn't go with me, but it it's not the same vibe.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: It's not the same going with someone who doesn't want to go. Okay, I love to people watch in the theater. I love because you can always see the girls who dressed up who this is their vibe and then their husbands who are in sweatpants. Yeah. I'm like, Wow, there are so many different people in this world.
• 39:14
  Wow.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: But it's just it's so nice to have somebody that like my husband is not that into Starbucks, guys. I hate to admit it, but he really isn't.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: I hate that about him. And so
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: every single morning when I need a Starbucks, I still have a Starbucks buddy. Even though he does not wanna go to Starbucks every single morning. Mhmm. Or for things like, I don't know, shopping for an outfit for Easter, for instance, you know, and being able to just say, like, okay, let's go. And it's still difficult, I know, in adult relationships to have someone that can hang out at the drop of a hat or whatever.
• 39:57
  Like, those can be difficult. Brie and I are very fortunate in the fact that we live down the hall from each other. Yeah. You're welcome. But to find someone that, at least on occasion
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: You can just or that you can just call up and talk to when you need to talk about those things.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. When you're having a really stressful day at work and you just need someone that has listened to all of your stories before so they know all the tea on all the people in all They know everyone's names. Yes. And they can just be like, Oh, yes. You were so right in this situation.
• 40:31
  Or sometimes, sometimes they can speak truth to you and be like, This isn't so serious. It's okay. You can care less. It's just a job. Yeah.
• 40:43
  So you need you need those people.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. Brie's been watching a podcast, I feel like or listen I suppose listening. You listen to podcasts.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Actually, sometimes they're on video. But yeah. This one is on video too. Right? Which one?
• 40:57
  Amy Poehler's. It is. Oh my gosh, you guys. I love that podcast. I laugh out loud often.
• 41:06
  Only listen to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: one episode. Okay? I will attempt to listen to it at some point in my life. But I loved listening to their friendships because you could just tell, like, the ease of it. Yeah.
• 41:19
  And I think that's what at least the episode, which I think was the first episode that I listened to. Who was it? It was Tina Fey. That was the first episode. It was Tina Fey, yeah.
• 41:29
  So listening to the first episode and just listening to, like, how comfortable they are with each other. And that's what makes other people feel comfortable as well. I've noticed when Brie and I are together that we're great at making people feel very comfortable. Yeah, they're welcome. It's not because we're some spectacular humans, though we are.
• 41:53
  It's because we are so comfortable with one another and that spreads out to other people.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: And they wanna be part of it. Mhmm. And what a good way as people of faith to start to share our faith with other people because, you know, we've said before, don't be weird. Like, create relationships with people before you try and share your whole life story. But when you have close friendships and you can bring other people into that, it makes them feel comfortable.
• 42:26
  It makes them feel seen.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: And I think we've said before too, they're not going to come to you with the big things if they can't come to you with the small things also. So they're not going to want to tell you about their struggles with faith or if they're wondering if they want to become a Christian or not. If they can't tell you about like their work struggles or their their ingrown toenail. Ew. Or their bunion.
• 42:54
  You know? Ugh. I'm thinking I'm just looking at my foot.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: It's a different kind of podcast. But to all the Christian women out there that have been told that, like, your relationship with your husband and your kids are, like, the only ones that you really need to care about, and then maybe you go to women's bible study once a week. You know? But you that you see them at bible study and then never again because you're too wrapped up in in your own life, in your own family. Think that through because our greatest calling, not just for men, for women also, is to spread the love of God.
• 43:33
  Right? Jesus said when he went back to heaven, he said, go out and make disciples of the world. Yeah. And, hey, the great commission.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: I remembered it this time. You're welcome. I helped you out last time.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: You did. But if that's our greatest calling, we really cannot do that effectively without creating deep relationships. Mhmm. You might, you know, shout your faith from the street corner and have people throw things at you, but that's not effective. The most effective way to share God is to create a relationship with someone.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I think about this from a business perspective because now I'm in business. The greatest marketing for your like, we talk about it for our office is internal referrals. The people who can say, Yes, I've been there. I've seen this place. The people are great.
• 44:23
  I feel loved, safe, whatever. Maybe not in an office. Although, you know, I could you know what? No. Never mind.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: That's a different kind of office.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Internal referrals. It's the same for Jesus. Internal referrals. Internal referrals. You know, it's a lot more likely that you're gonna capture someone's heart when you care about their heart.
• 44:45
  Mhmm. Oh, that was good of me.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: That was good. I think you should write a book. Maybe I should. Alright. Next week on the We Are More podcast, Brie will
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: be drafting her book. Yes. I'll be drafting it On that note. Well, that's it. You're the worst.
• 45:03
  Go make a friend. No. But I hope that in some small way, by listening to this podcast, you feel like one of the girls. Mhmm. You know?
• 45:13
  That is my greatest hope is that you don't feel so alone when you listen to this podcast. The podcasts that I like the most are the ones that I listen to, I'm like, they're my friends. Mhmm. I'm just hanging out with my friends. Mhmm.
• 45:26
  I hope that you find that in some kind of small way by listening to our nonsense.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Quite a lot of nonsense, some
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: might say. Quite a lot of nonsense. Yeah.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: So we will see you guys well, here you'll hear us. This is a joke I keep making, and it's I don't think it's a joke. I just don't know what I'm saying. I've lost words. You will hear us next week.
• 45:47
  We'll be talking about there's an article on our good friend, Marg's website. Our good friend, Marg. And it's called 30 bible verses on women's leadership. And I have heard, especially since we read our best friend Beth's last book, I've heard many a person, and I've seen many a comment on her posts saying like, but where in the bible does it say that women can lead? And the bible doesn't say that and whatever.
• 46:11
  So I would love to go through some of those verses. I'm sure we won't get through all 30 of them. But some of those verses and talk about women who did lead in the bible and kinda do we've talked about several of them in-depth, but kinda do a little bit of an overview on some of the really important verses Mhmm. That talk about women's leadership. So you can see that it is in the bible, and we're not making this crap up.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Not today. Not ever. I've never made anything up in my life.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Okay. Alright. We're gonna let Brie get to bed now.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: I need to de summon my energy. Would you like a ceremony for that? I think now we can do our alms.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Alright, Freddie. Alm. Goodbye.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy this podcast.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Alright. We'll see you next week. Love you. Bye. Bye.