Episode 156 - Healing in a Community of Women Re-Release
I’m bringing back an episode that explores something I care about deeply: the healing that happens when women gather in community. We live in a culture that conditions women to believe something is wrong with them—that we’re too emotional, our thoughts don't make sense, and we can’t trust ourselves. But when women share their real experiences with each other, that belief begins to unravel. In this re-release, I discuss the communities I’ve been part of that have shaped my life and why support from other women can drive powerful change. Here’s what I cover:
How patriarchal conditioning teaches women to believe they constantly need fixing
Why witnessing other women’s stories helps us see that we are not “extra special super broken”
How being witnessed by other women can completely change the way we see ourselves
Two common obstacles that keep women from seeking community and how to move through them
Why learning with and from other women creates powerful momentum for growth and change
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What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!
Transcript
00:59
I realized this morning that I was not subscribed to my own podcast. So I went to the Apple Podcast page, which is where I listen to podcasts and subscribed. And I saw a couple reviews that just made my heart so happy.
01:17
I wanted to share them with you. E Wong206 says, I came to this podcast through another podcast, Judith Gatan, my girls style masterclass. She says, Sarah Fisk is unbelievably honest and raw, calling out all the good girl programming that it's hard to see when you've been swimming in the patriarchal ocean for so long.
01:39
Thanks for sharing your truth and keep it coming, please. Thank you. I really, really appreciate that. If you have not had a chance to rate and review and subscribe to the podcast, I would be grateful and happy if you would do that.
01:56
You can do that by going to whatever page you use for your, to get your podcast, Apple, Spotify, BuzzSprout. There's lots of ways to find it. And then subscribing and leaving a review. I wanted to talk today about something that is really near and dear to my heart.
02:15
And that is healing in communities of women. And as I thought about how I wanted to set this up, there's a really interesting kind of push-pull here. And what I want to start with is that patriarchy programs women to believe that there is something wrong with them.
02:40
They are too emotional. Their thoughts don't make sense. They can't be trusted. Their bodies are unreliable. And so all of that programming really primes women to believe that they need to be fixed, that there's things wrong with them, and that if they could just fix the things that are wrong, then they would be worthy, they would be more valuable, then they would finally have the life that they think they want.
03:14
And so I want to point that out because it is very, very real. What it ends up creating is a lot of hustle around being better, always having some project that you're working on with yourself, your weight, your wrinkles, your heart rate, you know, your, there's an ongoing, most women that I speak to, I speak to a lot, they have some project that they're always working on to improve themselves, either their bodies or their minds, their personalities, their emotional state, their mental state. There's just a constant list of things to do. And so if that is you, I want you to just pause for a second and ask yourself, why? Why is it that I have this list of things about myself that I think need to be improved?
04:17
That's not to say that self-improvement is bad or wrong, because the other side of this push-pull is that sometimes the ways in which we are thinking about ourselves, treating ourselves, the point of view that we have when we are in the focus of our own attention is causing us a lot of harm and is causing us a lot of pain.
04:43
And so I do believe that there is value in working on the painful, damaging thoughts that we have about ourselves so that we can come to a place of greater self-acceptance, possibly greater self-love and self-trust, and that that is always good for women.
05:04
And so I just want to acknowledge that push-pull kind of right at the outset, because what I want to talk about is finding community to heal in. I have really benefited throughout my life from having communities of women in which to talk, to be seen, to share my experiences.
05:29
Humans need interpersonal contact, right? So many of us are still suffering because of, you know, COVID lockdown and not being able to be out and about. I mean, some of us loved it. I will say there was part of me that really loved not having any options to go anywhere or do anything and to just be home.
05:52
But that also runs its course as well. And we do want to be with other people. It's an actual need that we as humans have. So I grew up in the Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
06:10
And one of the things that Mormons do really well is community. And I had a community of young women my age. I later had a community of women my age and going through a lot of the same things. And it was really helpful to me at the time.
06:29
There came a point when it wasn't helpful anymore, but there were always communities in which I could go and be seen and witnessed, get help. Another community that was really important to me was a homeschool community that I was a part of for like 10 years with other families who were homeschooling their kids.
06:53
It was such, it was such a joy to get together with the other moms and talk about things. I noticed we shared a lot of like birth stories. It became apparent to me that one of the most important things that women do is they share stories about themselves that only other women can really understand because it's been their experience.
07:17
We shared challenges with kids and challenges with, you know, self, and that was a really important community for a while. When I decided I no longer wanted to participate in the religious community of Mormonism, post-Mormon groups were really important to me because I could express feelings, frustration, I could compare my experience and have it validated and honored.
07:50
I could read and commiserate and offer support and help to others. It's been really fantastic. And then lastly, probably one of the most important rooms that I'm currently a part of is a group of coaches who are in a business mastermind together.
08:08
My coach, her name is Stacey Baiman. And it is so powerful to be in a room of mostly women who are all working toward the same purpose, building coaching businesses. I get to see women who are powerful.
08:24
I get to see women who are intelligent. I get to see my genius in a room full of geniuses. That's one of my favorite phrases that my dear friend Maggie Reyes, who's also a coach in that community, says, is like, we get to witness ourselves in community with other women.
08:44
So as I thought about why this is so important, I came up with, for me, like four really essential reasons. And I just want to talk about each one of them. It's important to have a safe space to share and be supported.
09:01
One of the things that is, I'm going to be talking a little bit about different communities that I know of, including the community that I have created, Stop People Pleasing, which is a group coaching program, and encouraging you to consider joining, finding your communities as we go through these things together.
09:23
So one of the things that is really beautiful about the community of Stop People Pleasing is that it is a safe place to share stories about your people pleasing that in other circumstances might embarrass you or you might be self-conscious.
09:44
It's so fascinating when people come to any community where there is a shared goal, like making money as a coach in my business coaching community or stopping people pleasing in the Stop People Pleasing group coaching program, to have the opportunity to see other people working through your same challenges is so beautiful.
10:13
It is such a human thing. It's such a female thing to think that there is something wrong with me. I call it extra special super broken. That, you know, there's something just that is that's just me.
10:31
I'm the only one in the world who has this particular problem. And when you're in a community where it is safe to share your experiences and you get supported, you find out, oh my gosh, we are all the same.
10:45
The circumstances might be different. The challenges might look a little different. But we're all having a very similar human experience. We're struggling with a lot of the same things. And that just seems to be how it is.
10:59
It's not about me personally. I am not extra special, super broken. This just kind of seems to be how it is. And we all get to wrestle with those challenges together. Reason number two, to learn with and from other women, I think is a sacred experience.
11:24
I mentioned that there's kind of a beautiful momentum when everyone is working on the same goal together, right? We are all working on finding our people pleasing, understanding it, having grace and graciousness with ourselves in the process.
11:41
And we are watching other women do the same. It is the experience that can give us different points of view. And especially in something like a group coaching program, you learn not only from me, the coach, but you learn from the other women as well.
12:02
Because sometimes someone else is struggling with something. And because it's not you, you can see it so clearly. You can see the unkindness in the way she's talking to herself. You can see the options that she has that you don't think you have.
12:20
And then when you observe and can learn in a little detached way, then you can apply some of that teaching to yourself in a much, much more readily because you've seen it, you've witnessed it. We unlearn together as well.
12:42
We witness and support each other's progress. Reason number three is sharing stories, being witnessed. Going back to what I said about the homeschool group, we talked about the things we had in common.
13:00
We talked about the struggles that were unique to that particular endeavor. We shared hard things that happened. And so sharing stories and being witnessed by other loving, supportive women is such a beautiful experience.
13:18
In one of our groups, we had a woman. Her name is Tammy. I've actually changed it to protect her privacy a little bit, but Tammy was really struggling with paying for her adult son's bills. Tammy was not in a financial position to do that, but she kept doing it out of obligation.
13:40
And when we coached on it, it was tied to some mental health challenges that her son was experiencing and her fear about what would happen if she told him that she wasn't going to be able to pay for these bills anymore, which is what really was best for her and the outcome that she wanted.
14:02
The way in which the other women in the group witnessed and supported and loved and helped her as she worked through the complicated feelings and decided to take the action to get him the support he needed and then stop paying for his bills was such a beautiful thing to witness and to be a part of.
14:26
In Stop People Pleasing, we have had women who are in college and women who are in their 70s in the same group. And to see them cheer each other on, to see older women offering advice to younger women and really supporting them and helping them through their experience is one of the most beautiful parts.
14:49
I think of any female community. When I was still attending church, I shared something. I had a bunch of kids, really young. My daughter, Rachel, was 13 months old when her twin brothers were born. So for a little while, it felt like literally a three-ring circus.
15:08
And I remember going to my LDS community and sharing in the women's group just about how hard it was. And an older woman expressed to me her love and her understanding of the situation. And she said a sentence, she just said, it won't always be that way.
15:28
Someday they're not going to run and hug you. Someday they're not going to. She said, I know it's hard, but just know that eventually they're not going to do that. And that sentence sustained me through a lot of the really difficult, high demand times of having a lot of young kids.
15:46
And so the support that we offer each other through our experience is just so precious and invaluable. The last reason, reason number four, is to have people to cheer you on. In Stop People Pleasing, one of the things that we start every group coaching session with is celebrations.
16:07
And we celebrate the hell out of everything, awareness, times when you acted just a little bit differently than you would have in the future. Like maybe you didn't say yes immediately to a request that you didn't really want to do, but maybe you took a pause.
16:24
Maybe you said yes later. That's fine. We're going to celebrate the pause. And so to come to a community where women can celebrate and listen and support and offer you someone to cheer you on. It's just such, it's such an amazing, amazing experience.
16:47
If you're thinking, well, I don't have that kind of a community, what I want to talk about next is how to find one. Lots of communities are created around shared values and shared interests. So the first thing I would encourage you to do is define that.
17:05
What do I value? What are my interests? Do I want to join a marathon running club so that I can run a marathon? Do I want to join a book club because I would really like to have some more books and friends to discuss them with?
17:18
And come on, we all know we go to the book club meetings for the snacks. So good snacks. Is that what I want more of in my life? Because by defining the why, that's how you know whether or not the group is working for you.
17:32
It's important to have a clear vision of what you value, what would be worth your time to give to, so that you can decide, is this something I want to keep doing? Is this hitting the spot, scratching the itch, whatever it is, whatever your why is, is going to be really important to know.
17:51
Once you're clear on the why, it's just a matter of like Google searches to find community groups and things that you can try out and be a part of. So then let's talk about two obstacles that for sure, maybe one or maybe both, maybe neither.
18:08
I don't know. I guess I shouldn't say that, but I've noticed two common obstacles. The brain has an incredible capacity for negativity bias. And what that means is your brain scans what's going on and takes it to the negative, sometimes extreme.
18:27
If you have anxiety or some other type of added mental health challenge, it can be even harder. But the negativity bias that our brains produce is almost always wrong. I recently read a fantastic book that I cannot recommend more highly.
18:45
It's called Platonic by Dr. Marissa Franco. And she's talking about finding platonic friendships, but she mentions several studies that have been done in several different ways, several different groups, several different countries, and they all confirm the same thing.
19:05
The negative thoughts that we have about ourselves are not the negative thoughts that other people have about us, usually. So when we're going to a party or going to join a group, we are automatically thinking about being rejected, where we might not belong, where we might not fit in.
19:22
We're assuming that people do not like us, do not want to talk to us. And the data shows that's simply not true. People like us more than we think they do. People are more open to getting to know us, to talking to us, talking with us, and forming a connection than we think they are.
19:43
And so the first obstacle that you're going to face, possibly, is the negativity bias in your brain. You're just going to have to do a very good job of catching it and redirecting it. Here's how I suggest doing that.
19:59
If the brain bully starts up, they're not going to like you. You're too fast or not too fast. You're too slow. I guess if you're going to join a running club, being too fast might not be a problem, but you're too slow.
20:13
You're not going to do it right. They already have all of their connections and friendships formed and there's not room for you. It's to catch that talk and then redirect it. I love to redirect my own brain by saying, no, we're not going to talk about that.
20:31
We're not going to do that. We're not going to beat ourselves up. Chances are they like me. Chances are they're going to be open to forming a relationship with me. Chances are I'm going to find people who I fit in with.
20:44
So oftentimes I can redirect with just some logical thinking. Other times I need a little bit more of some emotion processing. So I sit with my anxiousness. It's not a problem. It's not bad. It's not wrong.
20:59
It's a normal part of being a human. And so if I can sit and be with my anxiousness, my fear of being vulnerable in a loving way, I give myself more of an opportunity to be successful when I feel those same feelings in the moment.
21:18
It is uncomfortable to not have a community. It's uncomfortable to have goals you want to work on or issues that you want to solve and to not have a community in which to do that. It is also uncomfortable to present yourself to a community, to apply, to join, to seek out, to try and create.
21:44
What I'm asking you to consider is that the discomfort of finding a community is actually the discomfort that serves you because it moves you forward in the direction of human connection, human interaction, working together with other people on a project, or reducing a harmful behavior like we do in Stop People Pleasing the Group Coaching.
22:11
That discomfort's going to be there either way. You're either uncomfortable because you don't have it and you feel lonely and disconnected, or you're going to feel uncomfortable as you go out and get it because it's going to require that you put yourself in new situations and try new things.
22:25
So pick the discomfort that works best for you. I will also say this. It is impossible to change. And by change, I mean eliminate a behavior that doesn't serve you anymore or meet a goal or try something new.
22:42
It's impossible to change while doing the same thing. Growth and progress is predicated on something changes, something changing, because if you do what you've always done, you will get what you've always gotten.
22:59
Obstacle number two is the fact that women are programmed to believe that taking care of everyone else first is essential. And that if we deserve anything for ourselves, it's after we have met the needs of everybody else.
23:21
And then there's another kind of double whammy thought there, because if we do take time for ourselves, then it's probably selfish. If we spend money on ourselves, it's probably selfish and irresponsible.
23:35
And I don't fully deserve to have this thing. My growth, my time for myself should come after I take care of everyone else's needs first. Prioritizing myself is bad and wrong and selfish and spending money on myself.
23:54
That is even worse. Here's what I want you to consider. Many of us are already dealing with the lack of community in other ways. We're spending money on other things. We are shopping. We are buying things maybe we don't need all the time.
24:14
We are eating. We are keeping busy to try and distract from some of the loneliness, some of the disconnectedness, some of the frustration, some of the hopelessness that we feel around these unrealized dreams and goals.
24:32
So you're already doing something to try and solve this problem on your own, whether it's eating or buffering with Netflix or, and again, none of these things are bad. I absolutely love a good Netflix show.
24:48
Just ask my kids. Where I want to point it out is that many of us think I don't deserve to take time for myself. We are already taking time, but we're just doing it in sneaky ways like watching TV and scrolling social media.
25:05
Many of us think it's irresponsible or selfish to spend money on myself. We are already spending money in other places. Most of the time, it's unconscious and it is not solving the problem for us. The money is going out anyway.
25:20
Many of us think, I don't deserve to have this time, but we're trying to give ourselves other treats or pleasures like food, because we do want something for ourselves. So I'm simply asking you to consider the wisdom of swapping the time, the energy, the effort, the money that you're already spending trying to distract yourself from the loneliness, the unmet goals, not having the opportunity to be in community for the sacrifice of time,
25:56
energy, and effort to have a community. The sacrifice is almost the same. The ways in which we are uncomfortable, yeah, it's going to be uncomfortable either way. But what I have overwhelmingly found is that when women join communities, they heal, they are seen, they're listened to, they're supported, and they have, they take all of that support and love and being cheered on, and they make amazing changes in their lives.
26:33
They run marathons for the first time. They learn how to swim as adults. They stop people pleasing. Every day, there is a podcast. Well, I guess almost every day that I listen to. It's the Daily by the New York Times.
26:48
And one of their advertisers is Dana Farber Cancer Research. And there's a line that they say in these commercials, and I just love it. So I want to share it with you and tell you why I love it. Here's the line.
26:59
And it's not exact. I'm going to butcher it. Nothing moves the needle on beating cancer like a relentless series of breakthroughs. That is what happens in group coaching. We meet, we learn tools, we practice them, you go out into the world, you practice them, you get feedback, you notice, and then you come back for coaching on what worked, what didn't work, what we can try again, what we can do differently.
27:30
And those are the relentless series of breakthroughs that actually get the people pleasing eliminated. You join a running club and you run a quarter of a mile your first time. And then the next time you're able to run just over a quarter of a mile.
27:48
And then you get to a half a mile and then a mile, so forth and so on, so on. Those little breakthroughs happen with much more support and ease and fun in community. Thanks for listening. I hope something that I said was valuable to you.
28:06
And I hope that it encourages you to look for the communities that you think will best serve you. And if it doesn't exist, to create it. I'll talk to you next week.
