Florence Ann Romano is a personal growth strategist, author, philanthropist, and businesswoman with a sparkling personality. With an eye for marketing, Romano flourishes as both an advisor and the vice president of business strategy for Yakkety Yak. Florence Ann is a Director on the Foundation Board at Lurie Children's Hospital as well as a proud member of the board of directors at Female Strong. She is also a founding member of Sesame Street’s Leadership Council. Her latest book is "Build Your Village: A Guide to Finding Joy and Community in Every Stage of Life".
538: Create Your Village
Florence Ann Romano
Hunter Clarke-Fields and Florence Ann Romano discuss the critical need for community support in parenting. They explore the concept of 'the village' and how it can alleviate parental stress. The conversation emphasizes the necessity of connection, the impact of social media on mental health, and practical steps for building a village.
Ep 538- Romano
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Florence Ann Romano: If you are struggling right now in your life and you are feeling the pressures of parenting or just life in general because the truth is you deserve a village, whether or not you're a parent, however you design your life, you deserve to find your people.
[00:00:18] Hunter: You are listening to The Mindful Mama Podcast, episode number 538. Today we're talking about getting help from your village with Florence Ann Romano.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama Podcast here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting Course & Teacher Training, and I'm the author of the International Bestseller, “Raising Good Humans Every Day”, and the “Raising Good Humans Guided Journal”.
Hello and welcome back to the podcast or a brand new welcome to you if you're here today, we're going to be talking to Florence Ann Romano. Florence Ann Romano is a personal growth strategist, author, philanthropist, and business woman. She is an advisor and vice president of business Strategy for Yakkety Yak. She is on the board of Lurie Children's Hospital. Hospital. She's a founding member of Sesame Streets Leadership Council, and we are going to talk about her latest book, “Build Your Village: A Guide to Finding Joy and Community in Every Stage of Life”. And we're gonna talk about the critical need for community support. Parenting and we will talk about the concept of the village and how it can hugely alleviate your stress. And we're gonna talk about that need, huge human need for connection and even practical steps to boost your mental health and build your village.
Before we dive in, I wanna let you know that you can bring me to your village. You can bring me to your workplace or your school as a speaker. In the last couple of years, I've done talks all around the world to groups and we have so much fun. I'm known for offering evidence-based learning in a way that's clear, realistic, humorous, and immediately helpful. So you can go to mindful mama mentor.com/speaking to book your dates now. And now join me at the table as I talk to Florence Ann Romano.
Did you know that over a third of listeners, just like you are working full-time? If you are in an office, we have something that can make life a whole lot easier, both at work and at home. We're bringing the Raising Good Humans course, “Mindful Parenting” to Workplaces. This powerful program helps parents lower stress, disarm triggers, and improve communication so they can navigate challenges with more ease. We are offering a special mindfulness for stress reduction module, giving parents tools to manage stress, reduce reactivity, and strengthen relationships all while increasing overall wellbeing. Want to bring this to your workplace? Let's talk email support@mindfulmamamentor.com to learn more.
Florence, I'm so happy that you're here.
[00:03:30] Florence Ann Romano: I'm thrilled to be here. Oh my goodness. Tr I felt like it was an uphill climb to get the technology working on my side of things. So thank you for your patience and kindness.
[00:03:41] Hunter: We made it through our technical challenges. We did. Oh, you did? I wanted to start off with the whole thing from the surgeon General, 'cause I think this is so important.
So in 2024
[00:03:54] Florence Ann Romano: Yeah.
[00:03:55] Hunter: The surgeon general identified stress. Like nearly half of American parents are experiencing overwhelming levels of stress so that the Surgeon General had to identify it as a national health issue, which is. Crazy. And you identify one of the things that is vital and missing.
And this is something, and this is why I wanted to have you on, because I talk about this on the podcast all the time, how Undersupported parents are and how frustrating it is and are individualist society. But so you, you identify one of these things as the village. And so tell me about how you came to this idea of seeing parents.
Seeing that need for the village, maybe this need that parents aren't, weren't even
[00:04:41] Florence Ann Romano: seeing themselves. I was a nanny for over 15 years in my life and I saw a lot of different things Being a nanny and seeing that truly it. Did take other people, other help in your life outside forces support in order to make the family dynamic work.
And the truth is, I grew up in an old school Italian family. My grandparents lived with us growing up, and so I had that quintessential village, if but I. Looked around as I grew up and thought, not everybody has this isn't exactly what everyone else's family looks like. And I know how it helped me.
I know the lessons it taught me. I know the values. It taught me having a robust village of people. I found my people. They were supportive. They were unconditionally loving. They were a big part of. Me growing up and raising me beyond just my parents. And so I thought, what about the people that don't have that?
And do they feel if they weren't born into that, does that mean they aren't worthy of that? Then I. And I wanted to empower people and encourage people to know that even if you're not born into what I was born into, that you can choose that for yourself. You can choose what your village looks like. You can choose the people in it.
You can construct that. You can cast it like a movie or a play. These are your main characters. These are your archetypes. These are the people you count on your ride or die. But also understanding that one of the. Biggest complaints I would hear people talk about, especially parents, was where exactly is this village?
Is there a phone number to call or do they just show up at your front door with a casserole in their hand we're ready to help you raise your kids. And I thought, you know what? It's time we actually put pen to paper here and gave a roadmap to the village. And that's what led me to writing my book, “Build Your Village”, and creating the six archetypes.
[00:06:37] Hunter: It is something that is, seems so much harder these days. I can relate to, my family, we were like a nuclear family, but I lived in a town that was a heavily heavily a zian Portuguese town. And everyone I knew, lived with vot and, and I forget what grandpa was called, but.
It was like, definitely like a vavo. And there were all these grandma, all these Portuguese grandmas out like in the neighborhoods all the time, just yelling at us. And it was great.
[00:07:08] Florence Ann Romano: That's their job, hunter. That's what they do. That's in their
[00:07:11] Hunter: blood, that's their job.
But yeah, for, but for me and my family. We didn't have that. My, my close, my closest grandparents were not that far away, like 40 minutes away. And then I had another other grandparents that were further than that. But it wasn't like, it wasn't like they were a big part of it, but at the same time, at that time.
I spent all this time I just walked. I as a 4-year-old, I walked, I was playing like randomly out in my street and the 4-year-old and I met friends that lived behind us. Yeah. And I spent all my time there and they were like this neighborhood village and it felt you know it.
I guess the thing that people can imagine is like a sitcom in the eighties or the nineties where people just randomly stop by and that just doesn't happen anymore. Nobody does that anymore. We're afraid of being rude. We're afraid of, so yeah, it seems. More difficult and even more impossible to create the village that we want than it maybe has ever felt, I imagine.
[00:08:15] Florence Ann Romano: I, and I think COVID really threw us up for a loop for a lot of different reasons, but covid put a wrench in things because people who. S needed and needed to constantly rely on that support, whether it was grandparents or nannies or whomever it was that was helping them raise their children.
That was ripped away from them at during that time. And so then when it was time to reemerge and reconnect all of a sudden people didn't wanna do it anymore. All of a sudden people were like, no. I think Netflix and my yoga pants way more interesting, way more exciting than me actually connecting with someone in person.
All of a sudden you started seeing in the media that there was a loneliness epidemic. There was a friendship recession, and people kept thinking, why is this happening? I don't understand why this is happening. I'm like, call on me coach. Hey, I know why this is happening. It's that you've forgotten that you actually need connection in life and especially with raising children in order to feel that you are fulfilled and satiated.
Seen, heard, and underserved. Stood, all of those things. But I feel like we're still clawing our way back from those covid days where when we detached, we didn't necessarily know how or wanted to reconnect again.
[00:09:28] Hunter: Yeah. I think we could see it for our kids. Like I could see for my kids this is really bad for them.
This remote school. I could see that was really bad for them, but maybe we don't see it for ourselves. And so just for the listener, this is so essential for not only your health and wellbeing and your happiness, like people don't necessarily want care about their own happiness, things like that.
But also, if you have a village, it's gonna make you a better parent if you have all these places for support. If you have, I reference him all the time, the. The director of the Fire, fire Mountain center for really Troubled Kids. He came on the podcast. He said the number one thing parents can go to do to make sure their kids don't get to my center is have friends they can talk to.
And have good friends that they can decompress with and that can will, it just affects your whole ecosystem. We aren't just these individuals who can do everything. We enter our with each other and so as we create the support system for ourselves, it creates it for it. It just affects everyone in our lives, including our children.
I dunno if you wanna add to that Florence, but I just feel like we need to. Remember the benefits. You're right.
[00:10:46] Florence Ann Romano: Absolutely. Because I think we live in a culture today, and I wanna cite social media specifically. There's a lot of reasons why the surge in general issued this morning, and I hate to say it, but this is probably going to be a topic that's evergreen in nature.
Are we really ever gonna be able to eradicate the parental stress? I don't know. But our job, I think you and me Hunter in this conversation and and those listening is to try to figure out. What are the tips, what are the tools to help try to prioritize things in our lives differently? In order to take the air out of the tires a bit when you are feeling that overwhelm.
And so when the Surgeon General issued this warning, one of the things they cited, beyond financial stress, beyond environmental, was social media. And that is one thing I think that is contributing to this kind of doom that we have in our minds and our hearts, and why we wake up sometimes in the morning with this heaviness to us, is because there's this subconscious comparison that we're doing, hunter.
On this, in this doom scrolling, when we see, the neighbors next door have better Halloween decorations than I do. And they made their holidays perfect and I wasn't even able to carve one pumpkin for my kids this year because I was so underwater and I had a newborn baby. And I was dealing with everything else and dealing with postpartum, we're comparing ourselves and I know that's giving a very specific example, but I don't think we realize how powerful.
Media is and how dangerous that can be for our mental health. And that permeates everything else. And then that also affects how we show up in the village, how we allow people into our village and how we show up in other people's. 'cause this is also reciprocal work that we're talking about. It's not just give me gimme, gimme me, Mimi, what do I need from you?
It's also, who am I to other people. And like you said before, too. We have to put our oxygen mask on ourselves first before we can care for others. And we think it's selfish to care for ourselves. We think it's selfish in order to put ourselves first in order to be able to support and love and show up for other people.
So there's a lot of factors, I think why, regarding why the Surgeon General has made this crisis. So obvious now, I think. But the one ironic thing about it is, anytime I talk to a parent about this, they say yeah I could have told you that the parents were in crisis, that the parents were overwhelmed.
You're not telling me anything new. So hey, surgeon general, it could, I could have told you that a long time ago, but again, it's about how do we actually mitigate it?
[00:13:31] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
And here I am with these kids. How do we start to create this village? And you talk about two different sort of levels of village. Let's dive into it.
[00:16:00] Florence Ann Romano: So I do talk about the primary and the secondary villages. The primary, those are your ride or die. Those are your best friends.
Those are your parents, family, friends that you're, that live close by these, the people you count on maybe more daily, more weekly, and then the secondary village. I laugh 'cause I say it could be your barista. And when I say that people are like, wait, how could it possibly be my barista?
I'm like you probably know a lot about that barista that you count on for your caffeine fix every day when you go in there and how was your trip and how are your kids and what's going on? That pers, that's a person in your village, that's someone you count on. That secondary village also comes in during moments of crisis or moments of extreme need.
Maybe there's been a death in the family and or maybe there's a divorce, there's a separation. Maybe someone has just had a baby and they're drowning, they're underwater, and there's gonna be. A village that comes in to help during that time of crisis or that time of need, but they're not always going to be there.
They're going to be temporary. So that's your secondary village versus the primary village that you're gonna have more so that daily or weekly touchpoint with those people, but. When people ask me, what's the first step I can take if I am looking to build this village, I've moved to a different city.
I have no idea where to start. These six archetypes that I talk about, and I'm gonna say them very quickly, and I say it quickly for a reason, hunter, and I'll explain why in a second. But the six archetypes I talk about in your village that you're gonna cast as these, primary, roles in your village are accepting.
Dependable, cheerleader, communicator, organizer, and healer. And the reason I always run through that quickly is because, and even Hunter, looking at you now, I can see you starting to cast people in those roles based on context clues of what you think my definitions would be. Now, in the book, I go into lots of detail.
Each chapter, is a different villager, but I always talk about. The first step because that's where people seem to get stuck. And before I even have you cast those villagers, the number one piece advice I give to people is philanthropy. If you feel like you don't know how to go out there and make friends, how you to meet people?
I always say philanthropy is a great way to do that because it's something that makes your heart flutter. You're going to throw it into Google or ask your community, ask your friends something that makes something that's important to you. And then you're gonna go and you're gonna serve, but you're gonna be with people that are like-minded and have similar values, and all of a sudden it's not as threatening.
And you are gonna be able to connect with people far more deeply and far more easily than just walking up to some random, other mom on the playground that you're like, I don't know if this is, if she's gonna be into this and wants to schedule a play date with someone she just met. So that's always my first piece of advice is philanthropy is a great way to start if you don't know how to take that first step.
[00:18:55] Hunter: So when you're saying philanthropy, for instance for the election I did some volunteering with a group that did a thing called like deep canvassing, and I went into West Philadelphia and tried to get people out to vote. So you're saying something like that, don't, not necessarily volunteering for the school board or like bringing in the, maybe it could be that but also maybe, I mean for, because for me, I don't know.
The PTOs never make my heart skip a beat. Sorry. Sorry. Vts. But like the idea of maybe something else that really matters to you or you really care about, like volunteer, offering up some time, which is I can already hear, are you kidding me? I have no time, but offering up some time I.
Two, to connect with people in a way that's giving back, looking for local groups that are doing something. That's what you're talking about, right?
[00:19:46] Florence Ann Romano: And that's again, if you're looking to make friends and you feel like that's the thing that's missing in your life. And to challenge that a little bit, hunter, 'cause I know people out there are thinking, how could you tell me to add one more thing to my already overflowing Thanksgiving sized plate?
Please don't do that. Florin sand. Here's the truth. I can give you the directions to the village. I can give you this roadmap, but I. I need you to get in the car and drive there. So if this is important to you, if you are feeling like you are disconnected, you are feeling lonely, it's a felt affecting your mental health, then you're going to have to prioritize this finding people to connect with.
And I want you to know that you're worthy of it. Like I said, going back to the beginning, that you're worthy of making this time for yourself. But going back to the villagers. Also what I'm asking you to do here is figuring out where's the low hanging fruit in your life already. I'm not asking you what these six archetypes go out and you have to make six new friends and you have to cast them in these six roles.
You could have four accepting villagers, nine healers. You could have no organizers. Maybe that's not a time in your life. You need that organizer right now. Maybe there'll be a time down the line, but not right now. You're good with four out of the six? Okay, great. But. As you start casting, I want you to look at who's already in your life.
Do you actually have these people sitting in the right seats? Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe you have cast someone in the role of the accepting vil villager, but they are disappointing you. They're betraying you. Maybe perhaps that's because you're not setting them up for success. They're not the accepting villager.
Maybe they're the communicator. Maybe they're the organizer. Maybe you have to. Put them into a different role and then make room to hire or cast other people in your life that are going to actually fill fill that void correctly. But that's what I also see people struggling with, is sometimes making the puzzle pieces fit when you may need to be evaluating whether or not your village is currently working for you.
[00:21:49] Hunter: Okay, a step one, you got no one around. Go volunteer. Give some time. And I just wanna just go back to that because, dear listener, this what she's, what Florence Sand is suggesting is also a really great way to say, Hey darling, family, I'm gonna be away on Wednesday nights from seven 30 to eight 30 and have time to myself where I'm not in the role of parent.
That's actually a really good idea. So I highly recommend that. And then B, you're talking about these now different roles, like you may already have some of these people in their. They're these, as support, but they may be in the wrong role. And you talked about the accepting villager. Is this the person that's maybe the, like I'm imagining when you say the accepting vi villager, like this is the person that's the essential person where you're like, I need to vetch about something that happened.
I need to talk, I need to decompress and talk about something. This is like what we're thinking of.
[00:22:43] Florence Ann Romano: Absolutely. The accepting villager is the nonjudgmental one the one, the very first person you're probably gonna cast in your village, and also the person that you can confide in about a secret or a problem you're having.
So you're absolutely right on the money Hunter that Annette, again, you could have more than one of these people in your life. And also the fun exercise too, is when you start looking at yourself and wondering, who am I of these six people to others? Because you learn a lot about yourself. And how you show up for others by allowing yourself to do that evaluation, that self-evaluation and you have to know thyself before, before you can do anything else.
Who
[00:23:20] Hunter: is the dependable villager and the cheerleader? Villager?
[00:23:26] Florence Ann Romano: The dependable, and I always laugh because this is the person that actually answers their phone, like your emergency contact, and I think no one answers their. Phone anymore. True. And so can I tell you, hunter, I am probably no joke, like nine people's emergency contact with their children for school because they know I'll answer my phone.
So that's just a role that I play. And then you had mentioned the healer, villager Hunter, did you say The cheerleader. The cheerleader. Pardon me? So the cheerleader, people always ask me if I have a favorite. One. And I, it's like a favorite child. Of course, you're not gonna pick a favorite one, but I love all these for different reasons.
But the cheerleader is of course, someone who inspires. But I also love to think of them as someone that you're gonna go to during a life changing event, and you need someone to show up for you in this moment of transition. This is your hype person, but moments of transition, I think thinking about that and framing that for yourself.
For the cheerleader is far deeper and more effective than just the rah person. It's someone who actually is gonna be able to see you through something that is challenging.
[00:24:32] Hunter: Okay. And then there's the communicator, the organizer, and the healer. Just so we round it out for people, tell us briefly who, which is each of one, each of these.
The
[00:24:45] Florence Ann Romano: communicator has your best interest in mind. They're curious and even tempered. They're capable of seeing other perspectives. They don't turn up the heat on the stove. They put a lid on it. The organizer is the person you delegate to. This is someone who's gonna give you the peace of mind. You know that this is going to get done.
You can release the control, and then there's the healer the one that walks next to you through it, whatever the it is in your life. And. It doesn't mean, and this is very important, if not you take anything away from these villagers, please take this away. The healer is not the person who is gonna fix you or fix your situation.
This is someone that is gonna walk next to you through it. It's a consciously compassionate person, your North star because I think we get into trouble when we start looking to people to fix us or fix the situation.
[00:25:36] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
[00:25:59] Hunter: Now I'm imagining the listener who is five hours away from your family and alone of your kids.
And thinking, and I imagine that one of the things that happens is that we probably tend to cast, maybe our partner, like if we're married in like all of those roles. Like we want them to do all the roles. Don't do
[00:26:20] Florence Ann Romano: it. Don't do it. Yeah. Don't do it. I already know where you're going. Don't do it under, don't do it.
[00:26:28] Hunter: Yeah. Okay. Why not? Why should, why do we wanna. Why do we wanna distribute this? And then also, like if you're saying like, oh, I don't have a healer person, how do I, how does someone find someone
[00:26:39] Florence Ann Romano: like that? First of all, the same reason you don't wanna put it on your spouse to be everything to you is the same reason you want multiple friends.
You don't wanna put everything on one friend to be everything to you. That's also going to be problematic. And, sisterhood. I'm just gonna talk about that for just a second. We do bond to women differently. And not to say that men aren't gonna do this work too with village building, of course, but they also have their own way of bonding with their friends, but.
Our friendships, they tend to see us differently than our romantic relationships, and we tend to go to them for different reasons. Our spouses tend to wanna be fixers. They just wanna fix the problem, not necessarily wanna listen to you vent or, have, you know that, that kind of emotional conversation.
Some do, but that's generally where you're turning to your friendships. For, so I want you to think about the same way. You're not trying to put everything on a friend. You're not gonna do the same thing to your spouse because that's not fair. You wanna be able to distribute that, that sort of need and that support.
And then, as you were saying about these villagers and if you're sitting home alone and not figuring out how to, figuring out, pardon me, how to actually cast these roles. I always say, think about the people you have first in your life that may be able to fit into these roles, and maybe you haven't given them the opportunity to.
Support you or serve in that way in your life. And maybe, again, you're gonna recast, you're gonna recalibrate a bit. Or perhaps when you're going out there and looking for this person, this healer, you're going out with intention. You know the qualities that you're looking for in that person, and you're gonna put yourself in environments where you're probably going to meet or be surrounded by people with these qualities.
Like you said, what you just. For the election, or maybe it's, it has to do with your church or whatever, what, whatever you subscribe to in terms of spirituality, and you think, okay, you know what? I'm going to spend more time maybe in a book club or a Bible study or a a healing it could be yoga or, or even possibly even deciding to go to therapy or starting, therapy or counseling. Sometimes the entry to support in this way does come with a fee, but that doesn't mean it's any less valuable. Just because you're gonna start therapy at this point in your life doesn't mean that's not.
A villager that you can count on. Sometimes there's a price tag and that's okay. But so think about what you want and what that looks like.
[00:29:16] Hunter: You're describing this, like this idea of the third place. And I think that this is something that people have talked about this idea of we have our homes.
For many of us, we many, for many of us, we have a business, right? So like a second place and. And for many years, or this is the way it was, it used to be that we had our homes, then we had a second place, maybe our place of work, and then we had a third place. And for some people it was the local bar.
It was the local coffee shop, or it was, the pool hall, or it was the yoga studio, whatever it was. And it's like Wiz, since Covid, it's all condensed down into one place.
[00:29:53] Florence Ann Romano: And
[00:29:53] Hunter: we are. Seeing the detrimental effects of that. Just having it all be in your home, and we have to come back and remember what you know, is it the YMCA that I went to, that was my third place.
Is it that yoga studio where the teacher knows me, right? Is it, I don't know. Maybe it is the bar. I don't know. What is that third place? I always wanted like a cheers situation, but it doesn't seem to work. I don't drink enough for that.
[00:30:20] Florence Ann Romano: You
[00:30:20] Hunter: and me
[00:30:20] Florence Ann Romano: both, hunter, I would not be the one you want at the bar, that's for sure.
I'd be sleeping in the booth like within five minutes, like three sips. No way. Yeah. Yeah. But I love that idea of the third place, and you're right, I think it's become more elusive probably too for people because it is condensed now after c. But again, going back to I think the original point and what you said too, saying to your darling family, I'm gonna be gone during this hour of the day or evening or whatever it is, because again, it's about putting that oxygen mask on yourself first.
And I cannot stress enough that one of the big reasons I wanted to write this book and wanted to create these archetypes was because I did want people to understand that they deserve to find their people. And if you are struggling right now in your life and you are feeling the pressures of parenting or just life in general because the truth is you deserve a village, whether or not you're a parent, however you design your life, you deserve to find your people.
But especially for parents where it can be very lonely and. I don't want people to feel like they are being passed over because they did, they weren't born into what I described earlier in the show. I want you to feel empowered leaving hopefully this conversation to know that you are worthy of it and you deserve it.
And, take control where you can in your life. And if this is a place you can do it. Hopefully you've found some ways that you can take small steps that are gonna lead to bigger results.
[00:31:55] Hunter: I love that. I love that. So before we go, I think it's just important to think about this idea of as we're starting to, we're maybe we're starting to reach out, we're starting to create these communities and find these different places.
And actually as you're discussing this I realize like for me I really have created this kind of village in a lot of way with all of these sort of second. Secondary village people in this, like in my Scottish country dancing community, as you've heard about Dear List and our before. I love that.
Oh yeah. It's like a great community of people and they're, it's more, it's wonderful anyway, but we've now we're starting to create these. Create these communities, maybe identify these, essential pieces of our village. How do we ask them for support? Because I know that people have so much trouble with this.
Even in my, like I live in a cul-de-sac where we're all friends. We do support each other. We watch each other's dogs. The dogs play. We hang out. Sometimes we play games and stuff like that. Still, it's hard for people to just say Hey, do you have, even the things we used to do do you have a cup of sugar?
I dunno. It's, I think it's hard for people to do something that's. Outside of the phone anyway, what do you
[00:33:08] Florence Ann Romano: say? I agree. I agree with you. No, I agree with you completely. And I think you'd say number, the number one PE thing people are afraid of is public speaking. And I'd say in line with that, if, or even if not more, is probably asking for help.
People are deathly afraid of asking for help. It's debilitating for some people. Because again, culture Society has made us feel like if we are not doing it on our own, then somehow we're a failure. But. The best piece of advice I have for you regarding that is you just have to do it. You have to ask.
And then here's the more important piece. After that, it's not about keeping score, I. That's the reason people don't ask is because they think I have a debt now to you because I picked your kids up from school. Or I helped when you were running late and had to, pick up a prescription or something like that, or, I needed you to last minute babysit for me, or, run over and let out my dog.
Whatever it is, I. I think that is what stands in the way of people wanting to ask for help is because they don't know when they're going to be able to pay it forward or repay that debt. And I think if we could eradicate that guilt that we feel and that keeping score, then we are going to be more, I.
Prone and more susceptible to being vulnerable and letting our guard down and saying, this is what I need. And if you have the right people in your life, if you have surround yourself with the right type of friends who have similar values to you or then they are going to think about it the same way you are.
But if you are having a problem asking certain people for help, I challenge you to sit with that for a minute. Why is it difficult for you to ask that person for help? Is it how they make you feel? Is it something they've done? Are you projecting on something that could go into a bigger rabbit hole?
But I want you to really pay attention to how others are making you feel when you're asking for support. 'cause that's a window to a larger conversation and probably a, an aha moment for you.
[00:35:12] Hunter: That's, I think that's something I'm gonna be considering too, and. And also, I guess these are things that we can communicate directly.
Hey, I'm not keeping tabs on, who does what. We're not, I'm not keeping score of favors. I'm here for you when you need something. Please let me know. Please. Ask me for something too. Please ask me for something.
[00:35:34] Florence Ann Romano: Exactly. I love that, that prefacing it with that, even starting with that disclaimer.
'cause you're hopefully then allowing that person to let their guard down by saying that because you're trying to maybe anticipate what their what, how they're gonna receive that information or how they're gonna receive that request. And also remember, if these are your friends, you probably know their personalities.
So when we ask for something and we ask for help or we talk to someone about something, start thinking about also how that person processes receives information, what their personality traits are like, and customize the way you ask for something according to who they are back into it that way.
I know that maybe takes an extra minute or two to think about. Constructing that sentence or how you're gonna ask for something, but if the end goal is for you to get that support, then. I believe in thinking about how you're going to say something in a way that someone's gonna be able to receive it in the way you intend.
So I know that this is, and again, some extra steps and some maybe some things you didn't think about, having to think about how you say something to someone. But I'm not saying that you have to always protect someone's feelings or you have to worry about how they're going to react to you.
I'm just. Trying to get you to understand that the way you communicate with people can be customized and should.
[00:37:00] Hunter: Alright, awesome. This is wonderful. Florence's book is “Build Your Village”. Florence, is there anything we missed that you wanna share with the listeners?
[00:37:12] Florence Ann Romano: I just want, again, like I said before, you to know that you deserve this and you're worthy of this.
And if you do feel alone right now and you do not know where to start, please reach out to me. I answer every DM or any email, and I can be that first step you take. So please take me up on it.
[00:37:28] Hunter: That is so cool. I love that. Florence Ann Romano's book is “Build Your Village: A Guide to Finding Joy and Community in Every Stage of Life”. Florence, thank you so much for persisting through the technical challenges and sharing this with the, I think it's such an important conversation. We need to be thinking this way collectively rather than individually. And I love that you're bringing this conversation to the forefront. So cool.
[00:37:58] Florence Ann Romano: Thank you.
This was so joyful to do this with you, and I just so impressed by how you, your, what your ripple effect is in the world regarding this topic too. So it was wonderful to come together and have a gal chat.
[00:38:09] Hunter: I hope you enjoyed this episode. I think it's so important. I really think that getting disconnected from our villages, from our friends, is really a huge problem that we are encountering now. And we've gotta work against it. So it's probably a good idea to text a friend about this show today: text someone else who could use it if you enjoyed this episode, I encourage you to listen to episode #354, “The Power of Meaning & Interconnection” with Jeremy Lent. It's really beautiful, really powerful episode. Again, it's #354. You can search for it at MindfulMamaMentor.com. We have all the episodes archived there, and I hope this episode has given you something to think about today to help water the seeds for you going out and doing more with your village.
So yeah, let me know what you're gonna do with it. I'm @MindfulMamaMentor on Instagram. And I wish you a great week, my friend. I hope you have some sunshine on your face, hugs from your kids, and that life is not too tough with you this week. So I can't wait to talk to you again next week where we're gonna build on this and talk about how to become a better communicator with Charles Duhigg next week. So check your podcast player on Tuesday and I'll talk to you then. Have a great week my friend. Namaste.
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