The Habit of Community with Jennie Allen

Jessica Honegger [00:00:03] Hey, there. Welcome to Going Scared. I'm Jessica Honegger, founder of the world changing brand Noonday Collection, and I'm so glad to have you here for today's conversation. Our Going Scared Community gathers here every week for direct and honest conversations that help you live a life of courage by leaving comfort and going scared. This is our third episode in our new series Habits for Highly Hesitant Habit Keepers. Did you know that out of the 40% of Americans that make New Year's resolutions, only nine percent actually end up keeping them? I know that I can be a part of that ninety one percent of people, that's like what? New Year's resolutions? So I wanted to host a series specifically about how we start, stop, but really keep habits for some of those hesitant habits that we have in our lives. Y'all we kicked off this series with my favorite habit researcher Gretchen Rubin, and you all have made that the most top listened to podcasts in our entire history of the Going Scared podcast. So this topic has your attention. That is why I would love for you to continue sharing it and just join us on this journey. In our last episode, we talked about meal planning with Holly Erickson of the Modern Proper. I learned three amazing tips from her when I did an Instagram Live cooking class at her house. Did you know that you can buy the rind from Parmesan? So it's a lot more affordable? The rind and a lot of grocery stores just sell the rind and you can just throw it into a pot of soup at the end and it flavors the entire soup. Did you know you can buy garlic that is already peeled and you just buy it and then you can mince it because I hate peeling garlic? These are just a few of the discoveries that I learned while interviewing and talking to Holly, so you definitely want to check out that episode.

And today we are talking about friendship. It's been such a challenging environment the last couple of years, depending on how different friends responded or reacted to the pandemic. Political conversations. I know that the last two years have created a lot of stress among friends and even more bonding among friends. Well, there is no better person to talk about friendship than one of my best friends, Jennie Allen. Jennie is the host of the wildly popular Made for This podcast, and when I say wildly popular, I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of downloads every month. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Get Out of Your Head, among several other books, and now she has written a book called Find Your People and I got to walk with her through the actual behind the scenes of her living out this book, and it's a manual that we need. It's a manual that really teaches us how to be a friend, how to find good friends, how to have the right conversations, how to have the hard conversations. It is the most practical guide, and today Jennie and I are sharing some of our friendship tips about how you can go about finding your people.

Hey, Jennie, what about your bad habits? I know you talk a lot about our culture and the myths that exist in our culture. But I know you became more aware of some of your habits when you moved from Austin to Dallas.

Jennie Allen [00:04:13] Well, you're saying that because you're my real-life friend and you know, all my bad habits.

Jessica Honegger [00:04:19] That's true.

Jennie Allen [00:04:20] Yeah. But I certainly write about them too. And I would say, you've taught me so much about this, just that I am just naturally guarded. I mean, I don't need people. And Jessica is in the book because she pushes that out in me, and she's one of those people that fights for me to be needy. And it's one of my weaknesses as a friend. In fact, I've lost friends because of that reason, and it's so tender to me because I want to be a good friend, and that's always been a high value for me. [00:04:47]But it's not expected to me that in being a good friend, that you would want me to need you. And I think that vulnerability in that transparency is hard. I don't know that it's hard for everybody, but it's really hard for me to talk about what I'm struggling with, to talk about negative emotions, to think about negative emotions, to process my weakness, to process my sin, to process my struggles in work or pressure that I'm feeling. So I'm just not prone to talk about it. And I would say the main reason is I don't want to be a burden to people. And then I also don't know what the point is. And yet I've learned in friendship and Jess, you've taught me this too of just the power and the healing that comes with being vulnerable. [40.7s] Like, when I share that there is something physically that heals in me, there's something that that heals in just being understood and known. And when somebody looks at me with compassion and feels the things that I'm feeling, there's something in my brain even that starts to heal. And so I've learned the power of being vulnerable and not being afraid to share the things. And I would say I've gotten so much better at it.

Jessica Honegger [00:05:51] You have I want you to share the story that you do share in the book about you and I.

Jennie Allen [00:05:56] Yeah. So when I moved to Dallas, Jess said, We're not even going to be friends anymore. You, you. It was hard because we had a unique friendship in Austin because we both started companies the same year. We both adopted boys that are like brothers. They aren't biological brothers, but they are like brothers from Rwanda. There was similar feelings too- we're wired similarly. There was a lot of unique things to our friendship that I felt and I think you felt were irreplaceable. And so there was this fear of losing each other because I moved down the highway or up the highway three hours. And I loved that it made you sad and I loved that you did not want to lose me as a friend because in my mind, I was moving somewhere I didn't have any friends, so I needed you still. [00:06:40]And I remember after I moved, we were talking about how do we stay friends and how do how do I be a good friend? And I even asked you, I said, how do I be a good friend and stay a good friend to you? And I think I expected you to say something like, I need you to call me every week or I need you to come visit or we go on a girls trip once a year or twice a year. I thought you would say something like that, which let's be real. We all like to do both of those things. But I would say the thing you said I did not see coming and it was, I want you to need me. I thought, gosh, in some ways that was just super discouraging and hard to hear because I wasn't good at that, and I felt like I had let people down in the past in that way. But in another way, it was good to hear because it wasn't something else to do. It was just something I needed to become and something I needed to grow in. [44.0s] And that actually was even an answer to the lie in my head, which was don't be needy. And it was it was like, No, I need you to be needy. And I think that actually has been the source of our friendship for the last few years is I think I have gotten better that and you're so good at that of just being vulnerable. And I think together we really know what's going on in each other's lives because of that. So I do think it's preserved our friendship and you were right and it was the thing, even though I didn't want to hear it. And even though it made me feel insecure and I didn't exactly know how to meet that need, I've worked on it and I've grown in it. And part of that, I mean, I don't know how much you disclose, but I mean, we're in a cohort together, a confessional community, we call it, and we're doing this monthly, if not more. I mean, I just Voxered you and everybody yesterday with some things I'm going through right now. So we're doing this now on a regular basis, and I'm even more, less organic, like more patterned and structured language and Jess is our leader. She brought this together, and it has been one of my most favorite things I've ever done.

Jessica Honegger [00:08:29] Well, and I think what's interesting is we talk about being vulnerable and a lot of times we're thinking about our own stuff, you know, being honest about the struggles we're having. But in our group, we're really taking it to this even deeper level of being vulnerable about. Here's a story I'm telling myself about what you're thinking might be thinking about me right now and really calling each other forward. Like, even on this podcast, I'm like, you’re still using this word you need to be needy, but I don't know if being vulnerable is being needy.

Jennie Allen [00:09:01] Oh, I think it is vulnerable to be needy. I don't know that they're totally exchangeable, but absolutely it is vulnerable to need someone.

Jessica Honegger [00:09:10] And maybe that is vulnerable, but I don't think that makes you needy.

Jennie Allen [00:09:14] Well, I think that word is just so negative to us, but it is negative to us. [00:09:19]I mean, when I did this work, it's the main thing that existed prior to the industrial revolution in all civilization. People needed each other. It was the main quality that brought communities together and villages together, they had to survive. And even today, 80 percent of the world lives in these villages. So we've got a different unique moment in history where we don't need each other, we can Amazon everything and we don't have to cry out and say, Hey, help me with this or I can't live without you, or I need you to help me make it. [31.9s] And yet internally, we all are doing that right. We're all kind of we are all needy, I would say emotionally right now, and we are all disconnected. And so I think there is a neediness to all of us that is OK to admit even right. I know what you think, where it's kind of negative.

Jessica Honegger [00:10:06] The word is negative, but actually in the story that we live in as Christians, it's a positive like God actually made us on purpose to be needy.

Jennie Allen [00:10:16] Yeah, we're all more frail than we want to admit, and I think that's OK. And I think I've learned for that to be OK.

Jessica Honegger [00:10:22] So I love what you write in this chapter where you're sharing this moment that I didn't know about until you actually asked me to proofread. It's like, really, that was a big moment?

Jennie Allen [00:10:32] Oh, it was a big moment.

Jessica Honegger [00:10:32] But I absolutely love what you write a couple of pages later when you say you will only be as close to a friend as you are vulnerable with her. And I have to say that I don't trust someone that can't be vulnerable with me because if I see someone else holding their cards close to them, I want to hold my cards close to me.

Jennie Allen [00:10:55] Well, yeah, that's the way we're wired, actually. So there's something in our brains called mirror neurons, where when you're listening to someone and they're sharing something, you're immediately mirroring what you see. So it should be, I mean, that's the way our brains work and listen, you know, we really never were trained or never experienced that growing up, then there could be a deficit. But in general, our brains are wired that when you're sharing something hard and you start crying, my face gets pensive and I feel sad with you and even my face is showing you that. And so if you mirror to me, it's OK to share this much, there's a sense of I'm going to be guarded, too. If you see someone's posture is guarded and their arms crossed and they're cynical or they're turned sideways at you, they'll do it too. Now it could be just because they're having a bad day, but you're going to pick up on that and realize that's the depth that relationship can go to. I was just having a conversation with a friend earlier today about this, and she said, Why is it so hard if I go on a trip with a bunch of girls and nobody goes deep for me to be vulnerable and for me to be deep? And it's because you don't know if it's safe because they're not doing it. And so there's that sense of somebody's got to go first and the risk of it all is being that person to go first. And Jess, you're so great at this. I mean, this is what I think you brought to our group and what you've brought to our friendship the most is you just call me, I think of our whole friendship. We've always been phone friends, even in Austin, because we were so busy and you would just call me and start venting. You would just say, Oh, this is what happened at work today. And I loved it so much. And I know why you want me to do the same thing because there's something really endearing and like family when someone doesn't say, Hey, how are you doing? Like, they just skip the platitudes and go, Oh, help me, this is my problem right now. And there's the safety of we're there for each other, and I think it speaks. It's a language almost. It's like a language of sisterhood. It's this you're safe with me, I'm safe with you. We don't like a lot of my friends say, you don't say goodbye, you don't. You barely say hello. I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I kind of feel like we're just going to keep going in a conversation, and I hang up and we'll talk again soon. Like, it's just for me, it's part of that I feel close to you and I'm not doing all the platitudes. And so I do think we're looking for other people to be that way with us to tell us if it's OK for us to be that way.

Jessica Honegger [00:13:01] And I love this idea of the habit of opening up, the habit of being vulnerable, and this requires practice. This is goes actually against the grain. Tell me how you began practicing that habit.

Jennie Allen [00:13:15] Well, I would say it's still hard for me, and I think it's important that we talk about how hard and awkward friendship can be because otherwise we're expecting it just to be there in our lives. And it's not that way. And this is what you're talking about. I mean, habits, it's making choices. [00:13:31]The word I use in the book is patterns, and these are the ways of living that are going to build this into your life and your relationships have all five. They're going to be really, really strong. If relationships have four, they're going to be really strong still, three good. But you know, you need more than probably one or two of these, these patterns of living to have deep friendships. And so and all these patterns were taken from both scripture and looking at history in other cultures and looking at. The way people live, and I would say they're basic things, but they're hard things, they're not patterns that come really naturally. We actually push against a lot of the things like accountability is one of the patterns. Most cultures you look in, there are tribal elders, there are people that that village people feel accountable to. And I would say that's how we need to live. We need to be accountable to each other. [44.2s] There needs to be depth and a rubber hitting the road of what a relationship supposed to accomplish in our lives, for it to be real and meaningful and yet to get to those places it takes a lot of effort and a lot of patience and a lot of trust. And I would say it can feel impossible, but the reality is it's very possible. The good news is, even though it takes work, you can work and have it. And so I think people need to hear that it is hard, and I think they need to know, too, that it is possible and that if you practice these things, you can be a healthy friend and you can have healthy friendships because I think right now everybody feels bad at this because we've been pretty disconnected from each other and it's almost like a muscle that we haven't used in a while. And we have to reignite and fire that up and remember, and that always takes work. And that always is a little scary because you think, Gosh, am I good at this? And can I do this? And a lot of people that I've talked to about this, their immediate reaction is, I'm a bad friend. I'm not good at this. And I would just say we're all probably pretty bad at it. Like we're all people that are selfish by nature. We're all people that are guarded by nature. We're all people that are protective and don't want to get hurt by nature. So practicing this and living this way. We're all growing in and hopefully we will be our whole lives. The problem is we never got a first grade class on how to do it. Nobody ever told us in first grade, you know, here's how you be a friend. Here's how you deal with conflict. Here's how you work together to accomplish something like yes, there was some parenting and there were teachers that said, hey, share, share this or you can do it like you can. You can work this out, y'all talk about it. But the reality is, we really never got all the 101's of how we do this. And so that's my hope for the book is that it feels almost like a 101 like a primer of how to do this, and it helps people that feel like they're not good at it to build tools and skills to be good at it.

Jessica Honegger [00:16:06] It truly is a 101. What's that manners book that everybody goes to for manners?

Jennie Allen [00:16:13] Oh yeah, the etiquette books talking totally

Jessica Honegger [00:16:17] if, like what our moms use. Yeah, especially our southern moms. Though your book reminds me of that. It's like your instruction manual. And the thing is is we do learn how to do it, but we learn from watching our moms that might have had terribly unhealthy relationships with women or we learned from our middle school experience. And so we pick these things up along the way. We internalize these stories and we're often caught in those middle school stories even now. And that's a lot of the work we've even done in our confessional community. Each one of us has had stories from middle school that were like, This is the story I'm stuck in, and we're getting to rewrite that story together. And that is the power in the habit of opening up, of being vulnerable is that you could extinguish these stories of shame and actually rewrite them is the most. It's probably the number one habit in this habit series that I'm going to recommend. OK, here's something else, Jennie, because you and I both I feel like our are good at this the habit of pursuing.

Jennie Allen [00:17:14] [00:17:14]Yes, I tell people, if you want friends and you've got to become an initiator, you may not be that way by nature. It doesn't matter. Anybody can do this. You can pick up the phone, you can text someone, you can ask someone to coffee, you can invite someone over because the reality is you're probably inviting somebody that feels lonely. The numbers and the statistics would tell us that your chances are good, that you're going to be including and inviting someone that needs a friend as well. And so that reality should make us braver at the same time. You're probably also going to get rejected. And so I tell people, if you got rejected four times, but on that fifth time that became your lifelong best friend, would you face rejection four times? And everyone would say yes, of course, because you would do that for if you knew it would result in eventually a really powerful relationship in your life. And I would just say that's what we've got to expect. We've got to expect people to disappoint us. They're imperfect. So are you. And we've got to just be imperfect together and expect hurt and expect disappointment, but also to expect to find this eventually because one God wants this for you. [64.8s] And two, there are real things and practices to learn that can create this in your life. And it's possible. And we've got a lot of people that are craving it. So the hope is that we all find each other and we build thriving relationships together with practices that have been true for all time. That that when you practice proximity and you practice mission and a shared mission together, I mean, gosh, your company lives and breathes this. Noonday is perfect for this. My sister has been an ambassador and she found people and friendship. She found a purpose in a mission. She found people to cheer her on all of these things that we're craving that. That's how people have lived for generations. And so I do feel like we have to look and think, how do we bring all of this into today where maybe we live in a big city, where maybe we live more disconnected than people ever have, or maybe we don't depend on each other to for agriculture and hunting and raising our kids together, but we could we could depend on each other for other things. And so that's I know that you share my heart in that and you've watched it happen over and over again with Noonday.

Jessica Honegger [00:19:24] Yes. Shared mission, really. I mean, it's amazing when I hear the stories from some of our Noonday ambassadors that their friendships are incredible and we've been able to travel together and be on mission together, too. This morning, I had probably one of the most vulnerable conversations I've had with a friend. You'll be hearing about it, I am sure. And it was vulnerable because I got flat out left out of something very intentionally, and it's something I've been invited to do for the last seven years with the same people. And we were not included this year, and there's a lot of reasons around that, but everything in me wanted to just dust it under the rug. I can handle this. I'm secure. I have so many other friends. I already have plans anyway. But I think because of our group and because of enough practice and this, I knew the right thing to do was to call up. I mean, I've got another walk tomorrow as well with someone else, and I said, I'm hurt and that to me, it was so vulnerable. it's because I hate to admit that I'm hurt. But let me tell you why this is worth it. It's worth it. Because if I don't have these conversations, I'm going to create all sorts of stories. I'm going to carry those stories into my other friendships. So that's why I want you to close as Jennie is. Why is this worth it and how has it been worth it to you?

Jennie Allen [00:20:44] I guess I just want to say, don't be discouraged that it's hard. It's hard for everybody. And I would say too, this is possible. You can have this in your life. It's just a constant choice to pursue. I mean, I hope that this book starts a revolution for people. I hope they're like, You know what? I'm going to run my errands differently. I'm going to spend my time at my kids sporting events differently. I'm going to take a walk with a friend more regularly. I'm going to invite people to my backyard even when my house is a mess and we'll order pizza. Like, I hope there's so many small choices that people make and even big choices to bring and invite people into their lives. This was how we were built to live, and when we don't live in it, we are missing life. We are missing the way we were built to live. And so my hope is that just like Noonday, I mean, it has caused a lot of relational thriving to happen. And my hope is that this would encourage people to be a part of community in a way that maybe they've opted out of in the past because it is the best part of life.

Jessica Honegger [00:21:47] There's this quote that I love, and it says the grass isn't greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it. So it's all about what are you going to water? Who are those people right in front of you that you are going to water? And I tell you what, I love your writing, Jennie, because it's always so practical. It's beautiful stories, but you give us all the tips, all of the diagrams. All of this is how you do it.

Jennie Allen [00:22:16] So true. Yeah, I always got to have like eight charts, baby. I love them. Thank you friend, for having me. I'm so glad you're in my life.

Jessica Honegger [00:22:33] Have you gotten into the habit of hermitting? I think so many of us in some ways needed to come to a little bit of a halt. But now, guys, it's time to open your front door and step out onto the porch. It is time and y'all I have a history of friendships that didn't go so great. I have a history of friends that have broken up with me, and I'm sure I have a list of friends that I no longer keep in touch with. This is not you meet someone and it's just happily ever after. There is a lot of working out to do, but it is so, so worth it. And I know I mean, I've been making friends since the little preschool playground and I'm still learning and I'm still on this journey and it is a journey that is so well worth it. So I really hope you do so and get this book. And then also stay tuned because I am going to be on Jennie's podcast made for this, where we are going to be talking about our confessional community that we are in together and we'll have a little bit of a roadmap for you if you're wanting to start something like this as well. Thank you so much for joining me today on our Going Scared podcast. Our music is by Ellie Holcomb and I'm Jessica Honegger. Until next time, let's take each other by the hand and keep going scared.