In this engaging episode of The Grit Show, Shawna Rodrigues shines a light on the often-overlooked challenges of adult friendships and the all-too-common feeling of isolation. Ever felt the sting of exclusion at a dinner party or been left out of a meeting? Shawna doesn't just gloss over these emotions; she shares personal stories and advises on how to truly process them. She even shares insights from popular novels she's recently read such as Friends with Secrets and The Me List. Join the conversation to embrace authenticity and vulnerability in relationships. This episode is a must-listen for anyone grappling with the complexities of adult connections and seeking practical tips for emotional self-care. Stay tuned for actionable advice on finding your tribe and improving your emotional well-being.

Other resources referenced in this conversation:

Podcast episodes-

The Grit Show episode with Laurie on Adult Friendships –

Celebrating Time- The Anniversary of The Grit Show & How to Make/Keep Adult Friendships -54

The Grit Show episode with Matt on Burnout –

Conquer the Stress Cycle & Focus on Your Well Being- How to Escape Burnout: Part 1 -57

Emotions as Indicators -40

Author Express episode 87 with Christine Gunderson-

Master Class in Tenacity with Author Christine Gunderson -87

Check out the books Shawna mentioned - since these are affiliate links, you may even get to support this podcast in the process - THANK YOU!

Beyond the Pear Blossoms – Amazon or Bookshop

Friends with Secrets - Amazon or Bookshop

The Me List - Amazon or Bookshop

Her Secret Life - Amazon or Bookshop

Shawna Rodrigues left her award-winning career in the public sector in 2019 and after launching The Grit Show, soon learned the abysmal fact that women hosted only 27% of podcasts. This led to the founding of the Authentic Connections Podcast Network intent on raising that number by 10% in five years- 37 by 27. Because really, shouldn’t it be closer to 50%? She now focuses on helping purpose driven solopreneurs find their ideal clients through podcasting. She believes that the first step is guesting on podcasts - check out her tip sheet and once you've built your business and are ready for the full-service support for podcasting production and mentoring, she'll help you launch the podcast you were meant for. She still finds a little time for her pursuits as a best-selling author and shares the hosting of Author Express, a podcast that features the voice behind the pages of your favorite book. Find her on Instagram- @ShawnaPodcasts and learn more about the network and other happenings at https://linktr.ee/37by27.

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It might be that even without kids, this time of year might bring up some of those familiar feelings about starting a new classroom, a new school, and having to find out exactly where you fit in, how you connect and where those friendships are. Even though we've been through a summer where things have been different, haven't seen the same people, and are settling back into things again. Or maybe it's just very different now that we have cell phones and are constantly in contact, right? Or maybe you have a daughter starting middle school and driving flashbacks to the movie mean girls that did such a great job of portraying what so many of us went through when we were in middle school or junior high. Or you have a child of any age starting school and you're worried about them, maybe you fit in great and all of your ages and stages and connected and never felt left out. You're not quite sure how they're going to fit in. It seems that throughout life, all ages, all stages, that finding our place, figuring out friendships, finding where we fit in, not wanting to be left out as a continual theme. So today on the Grit show, we're going to chat a little bit more about friendship, what can make it hard, and specifically a little more about being or feeling left out? Welcome to The Grit show, where our focus is growth on purpose. I'm your host, Shawna Rodrigues, and I'm honored to be part of this community as we journey together with our grit intact to learn more about how to thrive and how to get the most out of life.

It means a lot that you are here today. As you listen, I encourage you to think of who may appreciate the tidbits of knowledge we are sharing and to take a moment to pass this along to them. Everyone appreciates a friend that thinks of them, and these conversations are meant to be shared and to spark even more connections. The specific idea for today's episode actually came from a listener, and it's a topic we've discussed before, specifically on episode 54 around making keeping adult friendships. It has been over a year now, so it seemed like a good time to revisit the topic. And because friendship was a topic I'd done before, I went ahead and took to the Internet to kind of figure out exactly how I should narrow and what specific pieces of this conversation you might find the most intriguing or interesting. I was surprised to find that being left out gets 5400 searches a month online. Isn't that wild, that surprising to you? Was it just surprising to me? I was surprised by this.

It felt like it was a topic around friendship that needed to kind of bubble to the top and be forefront of our conversation today. Then I wondered if I was the wrong person to be leading this conversation, because that isn't something that I worry much about. I'm someone who my husband would love for me to go golfing with him all the time. I'm fine not being included. I do not feel left out when he goes golfing without me. That does not bother me at all. And I actually put my mind to, is there certain groups of friends, if they got together without me, that I would feel left out? And I couldn't think of any groups of friends, I would feel left out. I'd want to hear what happened and hear about it afterwards, possibly if I couldn't be there.

And that could be a product of me living in multiple places, and I just can't be all the places where my friends are to be doing all the things with them. So it doesn't bother me. People get together without me. My mother was completely the opposite. If there was a movie, every single person in our entire family had to be invited to go to the movie, and she was upset if somebody didn't say they were going, whereas I was like, we're in a dark theater, and why waste money on somebody coming who doesn't want to see the movie? And recently, I did go to a movie on my own, which that was slightly strange because my husband loves movies, and so it was weird to go to a movie without him. But back when I was single, I would go to movies by myself all the time. So I'm not someone who I thought could speak well to this feeling of being left out until I remembered that around 13. Oh, did I have fears about being left out? Seven or eight.

Oh. I had very specific friend groups that I was definitely someone who felt left out. And then I realized how far I've come in that, and it made me realize that maybe I am a good person to speak about feeling left out. And it may be useful because I may be an accidental offender about leaving people out when that isn't my intention, which could be a good part of this conversation and processing this. So we're going to start mostly with the perspective of an adulthood and friendships and being left out with some throwbacks to our earlier years and what that looked like and felt like. And as we have kids, which many, many of you do have kids, and knowing what that's like for kids, and processing that with kids, because that's also challenging as an adult. Right. I feel like my mom's not processing how much that hurt her made it harder for me.

And sometimes maybe I was so hurt because she'd been so hurt by it and I was carrying that with me a little bit. So being able to look at that as well. So I'm also in the middle of reading a really good book, Friends With Secrets. Christine Gunderson wrote that. She was a guest on Author Express. And if you haven't heard me talk about it, I love being with a co host of Author Express. The danger of that is my to be read my TBR list, it gets extremely long because I hear these great authors and their books and I just want to read them all. And so I'm reading her book now, so you can go back and listen to Author Express.

I think it's episode 87. We'll put it in the show notes. But great conversation with her. And I'm reading her current book as an Amazon bestseller for good reason. It's a very good book. And in the part of the book where one of the mothers, her daughter's not getting invited to the birthday party, so she's having those tinges of pain for that happening for her daughter. So it's a very real thing when our kids get left out as well, that that is a thing and that feeling is a real thing. So for us to kind of talk about what that is like, to be left out and what that experience is and also what we can do with that.

And about that, let's talk more about this experience of being left out and what we need to do when we do get left out. So let's say we'll go back to when I lived in a more of a community space, that I had more of a joint group of friends, because right now, part of me moving a decent amount as adult is I have very different groups of friends, right. And so it's quite possible they get together without me, and I think nothing of it. But if we go back to college or graduate school and I had a more set group of friends, so if I had found out that I was in graduate school and my core group of Boston friends, that they had gone to a party without me, which did happen, and usually I was unavailable, was why. But let's say they had decided to go to party without me and for whatever reason, I hadn't been invited, and I learned about it from somebody accidentally because that's when you know, like, oh, I found out when this party and I wasn't invited and everyone else went but me. So I wasn't included. But that would definitely had made me feel like, why wasn't I included? What was wrong with me that I wasn't invited, right? So the first thing we're going to do, we're going to look at this EPD, EPD is going to be our process for this when we do feel left out of something, right? So the E is to fully experience. I think we've had enough conversations.

I think our conversation around burnout that we had last summer with Matt, which we'll make sure we put that into our show notes as well, that was in the high fifties with those episodes, but our episodes around burnout, like we talked about that full cycle of emotion, right? And that's something that we do, make sure we fully experience those emotions and we let them have their moment. And the danger is with the stories, we attach them sometimes. But if that does hurt, if we feel left out, if we feel sad, if we feel jealous, if we feel those things, that we just need to feel those emotions and let them be felt. The more that we suppress them, the more that we ignore them, the more that we project them onto something else, the more that we avoid them, the bigger they get, the harder they are to deal with and the more of an issue they become. So we're going to say that I'm in my twenties, living in Boston and my friends had a dinner party and I was not invited to it. And so I'm feeling hurt, I am feeling jealous that other people were there and I was not there. And I'm feeling sad that they didn't include me. And I'm going to fill all those emotions and let myself fill them.

So, and I'm going to do something to take care of me as part of that process, right? So I am going to experience them fully. That's our e is experiencing that fully. I'm going to experience those emotions. So taking care of myself, that depends on what I need. I might need to go on a walk and just process that and feel that and know that I'm sad and acknowledge that I'm sad and that that hurt and all those pieces and that's all for me. So I'm going to have those experiences fill those emotions. And then when I've fully done that, can I get to the p, which is to actually process things, right? So until I've experienced the emotions, I can't process the emotions. If I'm bottling them up, I can't process them because they're still like they're alive, they're still moving around.

There's still, like, these full things moving around. They need to, like, settle and be fully experienced before I can process them. And so the first thing we do when we process things is we actually look for patterns. And I talk about this with my difficult conversation stuff, and I work with organizations, is that we need to find a pattern. So let's say that I'm thinking of three specific friends that I had, and they'd gotten together and had a dinner party at one of their houses without me. And this is the first and only time this has happened. This is the first and only time this has happened. It's not a pattern.

So I can feel hurt, I can feel sad, I can feel those things, but it's the first and only time this has happened, and it's not a pattern. So less important information, and then the information piece is to look at it just as information. Part of the processing is just to see as information. The information is, there was a dinner. They were there. I wasn't there. That's all I know. There's a lot of things that I don't know.

It might be that in Boston. I lived in Boston. Very small homes. Very small homes. It could be that where they were eating, they only had three chairs, and so only three people could be invited. And it happened to be that my friend that walked by saw those two people sitting together, talking and invited those two, and I just happened to not be sitting there when they were invited. And those are the only two chairs available. And so that's why there's only three people that were invited.

It might be that there was a really personal story that one of them had to share and the other two had the background information, and that's why those were the two people that invited and I wasn't. And that's okay. It's none of my business. That's none of my business why I'm not at that party. And here I am taking something personally when I don't know the other reasons and other information. All I know is just a party, and I wasn't there. Don't know. There's probably ten other people that weren't there either.

Right? Like I said, it was only three people. So there's lots of information I don't have. So the only information I have, there's a party, I wasn't there. This isn't a pattern. Right. So let's go back to junior high. We got to go way back for this. There was very specific people in junior high that would intentionally.

We'll go back even further probably like grade school, who would intentionally leave me out? It's because they didn't care for me, which is fine. So we're gonna go back, and this is probably helpful for you if you do have kids that are these younger ages of elementary school, junior high, and there are kids that are intentionally leaving them out, right. Cause especially junior high girls, like, whatever else, junior high boys. It's funny, I had a conversation with my husband recently, and that was his least favorite age was junior high boys. And I was like, that's my least favorite age for girls was middle schooler or junior high girls. So at that age, everyone was just so involved with themselves, right? So there was kids that didn't care for me at that age. And it's quite possible that I was very obnoxious and annoying at that age as well, because I still had a lot of growing up to do. However, there was probably a pattern.

There was probably a pattern of me not being invited and me being left out. And so if there's a pattern, that's part of processing it, that's important information processing it. If there's not a pattern, that's also important information. So if there's not a pattern, there's a piece of the Q tip that quit taking it personally, right. That you need to quit taking it personal. It probably has nothing to do with you. If there's not a pattern, it probably has nothing to do with you. If there's not a pattern, if this is a one time off of you being left out, and it's not you finding the pattern, because I have people in my world that are really good at finding the pattern that they've been left out of one work meeting, they were left out of one family gathering, they were left out of one picnic with some moms, they were left out.

So they have a pattern that they feel left out, which is a pattern you can note because you have a pattern of finding things you're not invited to, and you have a pattern of seeing when you're not included, and you have a pattern of feeling left out of. So there's a you pattern with that, but there's not a them pattern with that, right? So you can't go to work and get mad at work that you're, you're always being left out if work isn't always leaving you out of the meetings, if at work, you're always being omitted from these meetings. And that's a pattern that at work, you're always not being invited to these meetings, and then it's a matter of figuring out, do I need to be invited to these meetings? Because we're getting to the next stage, which is the system processing, and there's the next piece of it. So I'm getting a tiny bit ahead of myself, right, where you decide. So you process it, and then you decide what to do with that information, right? So when you're deciding what do the information, if there's a pattern like that makes a difference. So if. If it's a work thing that you're getting left out of all of these, you're constantly being left out of the invites for this meeting. Then you decide what to do with that information.

Cause there is a pattern there, and you are being left out of all these meetings at work. So you decide what to do with that information. And so if the pattern is you're being left out of miscellaneous things across your life, then as part of this, a narrative that you're not taking risks and reminding people that you want to be included, that you're telling yourself that you're not worthy and you're telling yourself that people don't want you there and you're not sticking your neck out. And there is a group of people that I'm affiliated with, but I had this one conversation where someone's like, oh, well, if I'm not invited, we just show up anyways. And we just, you know, we know we're wanted there, so we just go anyways. And I was like, well, but this group of people, they take more power in being the victim, that they're never included, never invited, and so they're more likely to just stick with that narrative. And I'm so sorry if that was hard to hear, if that came across harsh. I definitely am not intending to be that way, but with this group of people in my world, they feel more comfortable being offended and being upset that they weren't included, then actually showing up and being a part of things.

And so where are you in all of this? Are you the person that's. If you're noticing that you're constantly being left out, but left out of, like, seven different instances and not in the pattern of one meeting at work or one group of friends or, like, when I was in elementary school, it was just one specific individual and one other specific individual. So two individuals, when I was a kid, they would leave me out, right? They were the mean girls. Like, is it just those mean girls, or is it a pattern of, like, being left out? And is that because you're starting to, like, believe those mean girls that you don't need to be places and you don't need to be included. Right. So are you believing and stepping back and that's what needs to be part of your decision about what to do next in your plan? Or is it this one thing happened and it's not about you. It's probably not about you. If it's just happened this one time, it really is.

Because Amelia, who was doing the meeting planning, just forgot to put your name on the invite because she was tired that day and it was one more thing, or she's overworked or she's stressed, or just a little oversight, or it really was that the two people walked in and there was only three seats, and so they were the ones that were there, or they didn't even intend for it to be at dinner party. It just worked out that way because they ran into each other on the way somewhere and they all just went over to somebody's house and they didn't think to invite anybody because they just happened to be together. So it really, if it's just the one thing and there's no pattern to it, it just is. Don't take it personally. It's just happened that way. And those are the things we need to work on, letting slide off because they're not related to us and they're not about us and they're just things that have happened. And then if we find the pattern, if it is a meeting at work that you're getting left off of consistently, then you decide what do you need to do about it? Like, why is it important to you? Why do you want to be included? Is it important to you? Because you care about what's happening at those meetings and your input is important and you really want to make sure you're part of this conversation. Then figure out who to talk to and get yourself on those meetings and be proactive and make it happen.

So you get included, or is it part of your job that you're supposed to attend those meetings? And really you have a lot on your plate and it's really okay that you keep getting dropped off and you just feel this, like, I have to go cause it's part of my job to go thing, and then, you know, just kinda let it go. It's okay. It's okay. Like, your feeling was guilt and your feeling wasn't that you're passionate and you have something to say, like fill the feelings so you know the feelings that you're making your plan off of later, you're deciding and planning off of later. Right? Know the feelings. And so if it was in graduate school and there was a pattern that these same three friends got together and I was continually left out, like, what is my feeling about that? Is it jealousy over how close the three of them are without me and that I'm not really part of that group? When I was back in junior high, when I was back in elementary school, that's exactly what that was. That they lived by each other. They were.

They spent time together, and they were this little clique that I couldn't because I lived out in the country and somewhere else, and I couldn't be part of that group. And if you have kids, it might be that. Right? So for your kids, we'll go to your kids. So if it's your kids, let them feel the feelings and make sure it's their feelings, not your feelings for your kids. And there's this little group they keep getting left out of. Like, do they really want to be part of that or do they just want to be part of a group? If they just want to be part of a group, then why don't they start finding the group that's going to embrace them for who they are and what they are? And that's what I learned from that elementary and junior high experience of being person left out. I diversified my friendship portfolio. By the time I got to high school, I had different groups of friends.

And to this day, I have different group of friends, and I don't felt left out. So me feeling left out back in elementary school and junior high wasn't a bad thing. So moms out there, not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you process it. If you feel the feelings, you fully feel it. You get to be sad. You get to feel the feelings. My dad, he didn't do it for this. My mom handled more of this later.

When I was in high school, my dad would take me out to dinner when I'd be frustrated with boys or whatever else, right? But mom, take her out and have that close girl time with your daughter when she's feeling like she's being left out. Right? Like, find that thing and talk about, well, what do you like to do? Who else do you like to spend time with? Who else has good qualities of being a good friend that you think would be good friend qualities? Right? And I think we talked about it in episode 54 where we talked about, like, Brene Brown teaching her kids about, like, the jar where you put in, you know, the little things about, well, why does that make that person a good friend? What type of things do they do? Oh, they ask about Meemaw. Okay. If they ask about Meemaw, that must make them a good person. How do you know somebody's a good friend? It's not the people that make you feel left out, not the people that don't invite you. It's the people that make people feel included. And you start to be the type of person that makes people feel included. Right.

And you pick up on those habits and you know how that feels, and you do those things and you attract those people and make that happen. So when you feel the feelings, then you know the type of person you want to be and can find those qualities in other people as well. Right. So that's part of the processing and decide, like, what are we going to do about that? Or if it really is, like, a geographical thing, which it might have been like, I'm not in close touch with those. Those girls anymore, but some of it might be just a geographical thing. So maybe, like, if my mom really wanted me to be friends with those girls, she would have done more efforts to get me around in the country where we live to the events where they were doing stuff. So it might have been that I wasn't included because I did live so far away and they were just that close by each other access. So to get me more involved with things or to have me join a club where they would have been, and then it might have been, I joined that club, and some of those girls were mean to me, so I shouldn't.

We should try something else, the different group. Right? But to figure out, like, you know, what is the pattern of what are those pieces? And to decide what to do about it and to go find other people and other connections, perhaps. And that would have been the same thing. Let's say I was in graduate school and I had the same friends in Boston, and I noticed, oh, this should always hang out. I'm not that included. Like, let me find. Let me find my pot of friends or let me see ways I can interrupt that. Maybe they all have a class together on Tuesdays, and at the end of that class, they all just run into each other, and that's when they go hang out.

So maybe I should go study in the library and run into them on those Tuesdays so that I could go hang out with them on those Tuesdays. Cause it's not really about me. It's just a matter of convenience, of when they connect and they come together. So, like, having the positive intent about how what come together and how those things just kind of morph and happen, and that's part of filling the feelings. If you feel like somebody is just doesn't jive with you and doesn't get you and that person's, like, elbowing in, then that's great. Walk away from that, go find your people. And I think I've done a great job in life of finding my people, inviting people that I connect with and being okay to let go of things that don't have that synergy and that good connection and being okay with that. Now, there's so many amazing people in the world.

Like, I've had the fortune of living multiple places, connecting multiple people, having through line friendships that have lasted a long time, to know that that is completely possible. And if things aren't jiving, that's okay. There's other opportunities, and so to find those and to work with those and walk with those. So hopefully, that's a helpful perspective on if you are feeling left out for you to recognize those feelings. Like, is it because you want more connection and you need to go find that connection? Is it because there's stuff happening that you can find your way to become a part of it in a different way? Like figuring out what those pieces are? So to fully feel the feeling and so you know what the feelings are and the feelings you want to address. Process that there is a pattern. If it's just a one off that's easy to let go of and practicing letting go of that, and then if there is a pattern, find out what to do with it. Decide what to do with it.

How would you want to do this information so you can become more connected in the ways that you want to be connected. So hopefully that will connect a little bit more, because I think that the other part of our title today and our conversation today is about why our adult friendships so hard. And I think that I'm in a great place, so I don't have that perspective as much, but I can reflect back to other places in my life where it felt like that. And I felt. I think those times where I felt that way were because I felt more alone or more isolated. And those were times where, when I was going through things or the stage I was in, I didn't feel like other people could understand and connect to and relate to. And that could be when I was largely. When I was single and my friends all had kids, or the people that I've been around a long time were all married and I wasn't.

And so those were the times where it felt more isolated. And that's when it felt more lonely, and then it felt like it was harder because I was like, people can't relate to where I'm at possibly, or I had specific family things happening or things in my work that felt like other people couldn't understand. And I think that's when it feels like things are hard, because we don't feel like people can understand or connect or relate to us. And I think we talk a little bit more in episode 54 with Lori about just in general, making friends as an adult is more challenging, and maintaining friendships as an adult is so challenging because we're so busy. And so that episode gives more information about how to make friends as an adult, how to maintain friendships as an adult. But I just wanted to give some air time to this concept about that lonely, isolating element that I think does make adult friendships hard and feeling connected to other adults when you're feeling that way. I just really want to touch on that and empower you as an adult to be able to make those connections and find those connection points along the areas where you do feel more isolated, along the areas that you do feel are more private and harder to connect on that really, the courageous thing is to find ways to share those things that make you feel isolated and to be authentic and share those things, and to be able to be vulnerable and real and to know that other people are experiencing those things. And it may just take a little bit more time to find those people and find that connection point and also to remember that just because people are experiencing the same things doesn't mean that they can't be understanding.

I think that Lori and I in Epicephathy Four, discuss and really demonstrate, like, how very different our lives are. She has a dozen kids. I do not have children, and we've lived different lives. She's stayed mostly in the town that we grew up in or near it. And I've lived all over the country. I've been to all 50 states in about ten countries, and she's actually been to a handful of countries, too, and a handful of states, like, she's traveled some, too. But our lives have been very different. And yet she and I can connect so long, come together.

So I think that to recognize where you do intersect on some important things is important as well. And I do love some of the books that I've read, and one of my favorite responses and feedback to the novel that I wrote Beyond The Pear Blossoms, because it's largely about a woman just out of a time of transition, and it happens to be that time of transition after college, figuring out what her priorities are and where she's going to go and what she's going to be doing. And she has these different friends that are an important part of her figuring these things out. And that was my favorite, one of my favorite reviews. There's somebody else that was like, is this person in this novel, this other person? Like, I loved it. People felt like they saw themselves in the novel, but somebody else was saying that the diversity of the friendships that existed and then the novel and the backgrounds, the friends and the way they came together and supported each other was really a beautiful thing, especially our world today, to see how differently they could all be and still love and accept and see one another and support one another through the things that they were going through. And the novel is such an important piece of that, and I love that. And I think that.

So my novel will Beyond The Pear Blossoms, and then the book I'm reading right now, friends with secrets. Christine Gunderson is a really good example of that, and I love that her secret life is actually about siblings, so sisters and their different lives and how they kind of isolate themselves because their lives are so different, and yet they really connect in ways that they take some time to see. And that's Anna Collins. So I'll put that book in the show notes as well, because that was a really good book. And then The Me List. Julie Balco wrote The Me List. And the two main characters have very different lives and different focuses. And the ways that they are able to see each other, to some extent, is also very valuable.

So the different ways that people can see each other when you don't expect based on your different backgrounds, and yet people can still come together and understand each other is kind of amazing. So the fact we give each other room to be vulnerable and be authentic, and once we do that, we can find our connection points. And it's fun because in friends with secrets, they find their connection points over books. So, you know, start a book club. These are great books you can start a book club with and meet other individuals you can connect with. So I think that's a important way to look at it, but I really want us to be able to take away for our grit wit. It's just that process of making sure that if you are feeling left out, if you are feeling more alone and isolated, to just, like, give you the space to experience the emotions, make sure you're experiencing it. And if you're having a hard time finishing that stress cycle and fully finishing those emotions to go back to the episode on Burnout with Matt that we had last summer.

And I'll put that in the show notes, too, to make sure you're finishing fully experience the emotions, letting them flow through and taking away the stories that you extrapolate from that. Right. And tell yourself so as you process it to look for patterns, but also to make sure that you aren't making information up and realizing how much you can be taking things personally. They're just a one off thing that was happening. And define the patterns that there are patterns. And then decide what to do with that information. Decide what you want and what your feelings are telling you. Because your feelings are indicators about what you want.

Right? We have another episodes on emotions authenticators. We're telling you what you want. So using those messages to figure out what you want to decide to do with that information and what you're going to bring into your life because you are feeling left out, how you're going to change that if that is how you're feeling, what you're going to do to create an environment where you feel more included in doing that. And for our self maintenance minute, I just want you to reflect right now to take a minute and reflect on what are you doing? What have you done in the past week to really take care of you, to make sure that you're able to meet all the demands of the people in your world. How are you putting yourself first and taking care of yourself first and foremost so that you can meet the needs of others in your world? So what are you doing? What are you doing to take care of you first? Are you walking? Are you meditating? Are you getting up a little earlier? Are you writing? Are you painting? Are you baking? Are you singing in the shower? What little thing are you doing? And I can big things too. I totally support big things. So what are you doing to take care of you? What is your self maintenance? That's what I want you to think about. And if you can't instantly identify it, then the next thing you need to be doing is making a plan about what you're going to be doing.

What's the thing that you're promising yourself? Find room in your schedule going forward to make sure you're doing for you, to take care of you, because you are very important and we need to make sure you're taking care of you. You have the bandwidth to help others and take care of those other pieces because that's what really matters. Glad you're here and glad we're connected keep taking care of you. I value the time we shared together today. Thank you for making time to be here and to continue taking steps towards growth and bringing more ease into your life. I'd love for us to stay connected on Instagram @shawnapodcasts or @the.grit.show. There's even a link in bio @the.grit.show where you can send me an email to let me know what you thought. Today's episode, hearing from you helps to make the effort that goes into producing these episodes worthwhile.

After all, you're why I'm here, and since it's been a while since you've heard this, you are the only one of you that this world has got, and that really does mean something. I hope you realize that I'll be back again soon, and I hope you're following along or subscribed so that you'll know and be here too.