259. Girls Just Want to Exhale: Why Connection Matters More Than Self Care

Sam - Clarity Coach (: 00:00

Hello, welcome to Beyond Awareness. I was on an airplane recently, in airplane mode on my phone, and I just try to fall asleep on airplanes, listening to music, and the song popped in my head, not even in my ears. It was not, you know, on my playlist, but the song Girls Just Wanna Have Fun popped in my head, and immediately I was like, do they?

And for some reason, I could not let this thought go. And what I determined was I believe that our nervous systems need other women more than it needs fun. And more than it needs another to-do list item crossed off. So let me backtrack a little bit. Maybe I felt this more and like couldn't let this thought go on the airplane. Like

Because I the way that I went about my life more or less, maybe sooner than others, because I moved away. I went to college. So I moved away from home to go to college. And then after college, I moved every one to three years or so. And I essentially I lived in eight different places or apartments in 10 years. So I moved a lot. I had

No real friend group that was, you know, in the same place. There was constant, you know, up in the air. And yes, I had my friend group from high school, but you know, that changes. And eventually I did move back home. But my best friend from high school, which I do still love and adore, she does have kids like I do, but they're significantly older. So we are part of different friend groups right now.

because our kids are different ages and you know, they are in sports and doing that whole thing. And so again, when I think of like girls just want to have fun, I think of friend groups and all of that. And I felt like I was just kind of a floater and didn't have I I definitely had fun in different ways. I just didn't have that from like a friend group. And I was like, wait, yes, we want fun, especially when we're younger, but

Especially as we age and get older, I don't think that fun is the point. And even back when I was in college, fun really wasn't the point. It was it was having fun with friends. And so what I think that we want is that we're actually craving connection. We want to be seen and understood by other women who actually get it in real life, in the flesh.

I recently went on a play date. Not me, my son, but of course I was with him. And I was sitting with my friend on the park bench. And it was just so refreshing to watch my son play with her son. And her and I were just chatting, not about our kids. We were chatting about like she has been divorced and is now happily married. And

I was chatting about my divorce, and we were chatting about our businesses and her upcoming travels and like just our stuff, our like exciting things that were happening and challenging things and all of the things. And it was so refreshing and revitalizing. And I hear this from other women too. My age and around my age, other women are setting up play dates. Other women are setting up book.

Clubs, whether it be just themselves to like get out of their house. But I also was chatting with another woman just last week, and she set up a book club with kids, which I thought was really interesting. And she literally said it was so she could get mom friends. And that's what I keep bringing myself back to is like we as women want connection. I think that we are craving as well, turning off.

Mom mode, we want to truly not be needed. At least I do. And maybe I'm not afraid to say that. I once had a business coach and I would say things like this. And to me, it's just like, yeah, no, I don't want my son with me for that. I want to be on my own for this or that. And she was like, you know, not everyone would say that out loud. That's really refreshing perspective. And so maybe it is just me, but.

I I can't think outside of my son when I'm with him. And I just realized this recently. And I think it's because our schedule, the way that it is right now, I'm with him constantly. So it's almost like when you never get a break, your mind never gets a break either. And so the fact that we're always together right now, I just his needs, his preferences, his desires.

are the always front of mind. And so it takes me longer to know what I need or what I want or anything related to me. Like I just went on vacation and my older sister was planning a lot of it. She's the one that lives out in Los Angeles and she was asking me like where would you like to go out for dinner? And I literally didn't know. And it wasn't because I didn't have a preference. It was because I was so wrapped up in parenting mode.

247, that it takes so much extra work to think about that. And so I personally at least need more breaks without momming beyond bedtime. I'm not talking about like the five to 50 minutes you might get before bed, but like real time away to tune into me, or that you can tune into just yourself, like to breathe, maybe journal.

And to ask yourself, like, hmm, what kind of coffee do I want? Instead of just defaulting to black coffee because it's quick and it's easy and you know you need caffeine. And then the second part of this, this, these are my deep airplane thoughts, by the way. All this was happening while I was flying out to California, is that being around other women who are openly sharing what they need or what they're doing.

Or even what they're struggling with, that helps as well to figure it out. So you don't have to just separate yourself and, you know, go in a corner to breathe or journal, just getting around other women. But as leaders, we crave connection on a whole different level. And I hear this so often. I've heard it from past private clients. I heard it just a couple of weeks ago when talking to someone from the leaders table, and they say it's lonely at the top.

And I think it's because not many women can relate to being at the top of their company, whether that be like the CFO, like an executive type position, or running your own business. They can't a lot of women can't relate to that level. And what comes with it? And so when we can find women who do, who are in those positions and who do those tasks who can relate to that.

I think it's important to not just say hi and ask what they do for work and be inspired and to stay surface level. It's even more important to allow ourselves to feel safe enough to have that regulated nervous system to connect and go deeper. That's how it's not going to be lonely at the top when we allow ourselves the safety and teach ourselves, our bodies that to.

Go deeper with those other women at the top. Another layer deeper is the mental load of being a leader. We're not just carrying the mental load of daily tasks and responsibilities and the workload, but the added load of managing employees, managing payroll. I was just thinking like camaraderie between employees. Technically that

likely not your job, but you're thinking about it, right? The success of your team or of the entire company based on your role and what you do. And then coming home to dinner and cleaning up and bathtime. I was just talking to my mom who used to run a health food store. And she ran it for a few years and eventually closed it. And I asked her about closing it and about mental load as well.

And she said that it was just very unrealistic for her at that time to be the only person running a shop and doing all of the tasks there, all those things that I just listed, plus more, right? She was the buyer, she was the person who stocks everything. She did everything. And then she had to come home and cook, clean, like do everything. And she does have a husband, my dad.

But you know, he does his own thing and isn't always like the one cooking dinners, let's say. And so it's just a lot to do. It's a lot on your to-do list, but just checking things off doesn't feel like the answer all the time. You can check things off and have so much resentment for all that you're doing. So that's not always the answer. Doing more and doing the things isn't the answer.

I believe the answer is lightening your load and also again, having your nervous system feel safe to share with other women and have that connection, that deep sense of safety to be seen and understood by other women and allowing that as well to ripple into your partner and other people in your life. But again, sorry, that was a little tangent. The daily tasks of

being at work and as a leader. So like the managing people, but while you also want to do your own tasks, right? So what I hear a lot from my private clients is like my employees have questions for me all day long. And that's what I end up doing all day long, versus what I want to do is work on my high level projects. I want to work on the business and like set the vision and keep working on like high level operations.

versus in the business, in the trenches, responding to my employee who asked how to fix the copier, how to fix the printer, right? And that's what happens. And oftentimes we do that because it's quicker, right, to just answer the email versus teach them how to be self-sufficient, teach them where to find the phone number so that they can call the printer person, whatever it might be. So we just do it.

We crave connection with women who get that added level of performance. Again, I think in general, women perform all day long as moms at work. you know, even ourselves. There's so many examples that I can think of right now. And then when you tack on a leadership role.

There's that other level of performance that we just went over. And adding a layer of connection can be so calming to the nervous system. And I'm realizing too, or I was realizing on the airplane that this connection piece isn't just a nice to have. It's actually, I think, a non-negotiable, and that there is a real ROI. There's a true

Return on your time investing in friendships or in groups where you can actually achieve this level of connection. It's not just fun or like a mom's night out vibes that we're going for here. The level of connection isn't just healing on a cellular level, which is true, by the way. There was a Harvard nurses health study.

Which is kind of a famous study, but it found that socially isolated women were twice as likely to die of their breast cancer than socially integrated women with more friends and close relatives. Isn't that crazy? That is basically sharing that connection can literally extend your life. UC Berkeley also did a study that looked at oxytocin plus.

positive partner interactions and found that connection measurably enhanced wound healing with that significant interaction being affectionate touch, which doesn't really apply when you are hanging out with your girlfriends, but and also oxytocin speeding up the healing process. So that's literal physical and cellular level healing tied to connection and positive interaction.

So it's super and literally important to have this level of connection in your life. my gosh, I did an episode way back, like two years ago, maybe, about loneliness. And I will never forget the fact that, I mean, I think it's a fact that loneliness is just like severe loneliness is just as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. How crazy is that? Anyways.

Allowing ourselves to embrace connection with other women is what also allows us to turn off our brains, right? To get out of mom mode, like we talked about earlier. Or honestly, even if you're not a mom, to get out of your mundane routines of like work, coming home to cook, cleaning up, like getting breaking free from that, to take a mental break, to reset.

To come back to being a wife or a mom or just your everyday life to your office, to your employees, to whoever, you're gonna come back even more energized, even more focused, even more creative, not to mention calm and present to your kids and partner. And I think also actually earning more money because your nervous system isn't fried.

You won't be snapping at your spouse because your nervous system isn't on overdrive all the time. And that's when we really want to think about what if we don't do this? What if we don't allow ourselves this time to really connect with other people? And if we don't, basically the opposite is true.

Right. Because if we don't feel supported and that depth of connection with other women, that's when we feel reactive. That's when we're snapping. That's when we're foggy, if you will. We're uninspired at work. And so many of us are going through every single day like that. And we just think we're burnt out. And you are. And we think that the answer is crossing more things off your to-do list so you have more time. And I'm proposing that maybe it's a little bit deeper than that. And maybe

Close friendships with other women could be an angle that would actually help you feel more fulfilled. And I also think that one specific example, when we don't achieve or not achieve, when we don't pursue this level of connection, it's when we start to question if we really want to go for the promotion or if that feels like too much at work.

If we really want to expand the business or higher, or if we should just keep tackling it ourselves. Because again, we're burnt out and we don't want to do anymore. Whereas when you have that depth and camaraderie and also a backbone to bounce ideas off of, then you have this lightness about you. So let's talk about how to find this, how to create this. Because I think that the goal is to feel this level of connection.

Often, maybe not daily, but way more than just like a girl's trip. More regular than just like, you know, a retreat that you go on once a month, or retreats mostly like once a year, right? And so think about what can that be for you that is a more regular thing. I'm still figuring this out, but I'm asking myself the same question. I was thinking for me, the first thing.

That I would also challenge you is allowing yourself to access your own emotions. And this is important because without doing this, you won't know how you feel, what you think, what you need, what is upsetting you, what's making you overwhelmed, specifically, kind of like I talked about earlier, when you are in the thick of it, whether that be at work or in mom mode or just, you know, going through your daily life.

Oftentimes we don't know. We're just going through the motions. And so slowing down, give yourself three minutes to ask yourself and access your emotions of how am I feeling? And then maybe regular play dates, not every six weeks or further. I'm all I'm definitely the mom that's like, we should totally set up a play date or we should totally get drinks without the kids. And then we never do it. If we're a mom friend, if you are a mom friend listening.

Reach out to me and let's set something up for real. and then also finding your people. I could definitely do a better job at this, but actually spending time meeting, like actively looking for people that that match your vibe and the energy that you're looking for. So my ask for you and my continuous challenge for myself as well this week.

Isn't a big one. I do not want you to overhaul your whole life or challenge everything and think, okay, I need to plan 10 play dates today and join six women's groups and all of that. I want you to pick one thing. Maybe it is text the friend that you keep saying you'll see, or say yes to the play date. Or if you're realizing that you need more than one friend date or one networking group a week or a month.

I am actually building a space for this. And I'm opening up a wait list for something called lighter. It is a 12-week experience for women who are just done white knuckling all of this alone, plus releasing mental load, and they want to stop feeling guilty every time, the very few times that they choose themselves, that they say yes to something that they want, not others.

So everyone on the wait list gets early access to pricing to lighter before it opens to the public. So if any of that sounds of interest to you, then you can join the wait list at the link in the bio. But that is it for today. Go text your girlfriend. Go look for something that will fill your cup in the realm of not crossing something off your to-do list, but actually filling your cup with another woman's presence and allow yourself to

Go deeper than surface level. Remembering that this doesn't just benefit you. It allows you to turn off, take that mental break, and come back to your life so much more energized and present and creative and like the woman that you say you want to be. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next week.