Transcript For Episode 3: Ways to Build Community In Your Season with Mariah Friend
Read the conversation for the podcast episode here (plus links if you want to listen later)
It is very important to me that I can offer the Motherhood Minute community an accessible space online, when it is possible. Here is the full transcript for Episode 3 of the Nurturing Spaces Series with
I hope to help you access these conversations easier by allowing you room to watch, listen, or read the conversations of mothers on building community!
Transcript (time stamps may be inaccurate with editing)
Chanel Riggle (00:01)
Hey, got a minute? Welcome to In the Season, a podcast hosted for the Motherhood Minute community. Speaking of community, this is part of a series called Nurturing Spaces, Building Community in Motherhood. You can join in at the conversation at Motherhood Minute on Substack. Today we have Mariah Friend from Heartbeats, and we are talking about ways to build community in your season. Thank you so much for joining me here, Mariah. How are you doing today?
Mariah (00:29)
Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, thank you for the chance. I am really excited to just have this conversation and see what comes up for both of us. And again, yeah, thank you for the chance.
Chanel Riggle (00:40)
Yeah, absolutely. I'm very excited that you can join me as well. We've been having some really great conversations here in this space. And today we're going to be talking, like I said, about building community in your season, whatever that looks like. And with motherhood, as we both know, sometimes that season is on a week basis. It's all of a sudden changes. Sometimes it's a few years. So let's go ahead and dig into it.
Mariah, could you give our listeners a bit of background about who you are, where you live, and the work that you are doing?
Mariah (01:17)
Yeah, so my name's Mariah. I'm the mother of Noah, who is just over a year and a half years old. I live here with my husband and our black lab in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I'm originally from Kansas City and we just moved here recently last fall. And formerly I'm trained as a nurse. I've also worked in nonprofit work, done a lot of community building and that kind of.
field and then most recently I'm focusing on writing and my newsletter Heartbeats where I share poetry, I share reflections about grief, motherhood, creativity and really the goal there is to build community for other caregivers, other artists and other just messy humans who are willing to show up wholeheartedly, fully themselves and be seen by others.
Chanel Riggle (02:05)
awesome because I've had a chance you know in the past couple weeks to really look at your work and I'd love to know you know you said what if the topics was on grief I'd love to know if you could just give us a little bit of background on why that is such an important topic for you.
Mariah (02:26)
Yeah, so I think personally, I lost my dad at the end of 2020 unexpectedly due to a heart attack. And so obviously that was a really big moment in my life where, you know, I really experienced grief in a way that I hadn't before. We were very close and also less than a year later, I met my husband and became unexpectedly pregnant. So these are just like two big life experiences that happened right on top of each other.
both of them unexpected at kind of either end of the spectrum of life, experiencing the death of my dad and then the birth of my son. So I think for me, grief is just something I'm still learning to navigate and live with as I go through different seasons, including motherhood. And then I think collectively, coming out of a global pandemic, I think we're all grieving a lot of different things, whether we've moved to a different location, we've changed jobs, or working from home now.
we've had kids like so much has happened in the past couple of years that I think has been hard for a lot of us to know how to process and I think a lot of that does have to do with those layers of grief.
Chanel Riggle (03:39)
I'm really sorry to hear about your dad. I think you're spot on with that though. There has been a collective grief. I think a lot of us have been calling it burnout, but I think grief you know, makes a lot of sense as a descriptor for collectively what we're feeling as well. I know for myself, grief was a very complicated emotion. I had...
Gotten pregnant in April of 2020 and so I had my daughter very much still in the days of the pandemic. And there was a lot of grief involved in motherhood and pregnancy and just like feeling grief about the experiences that I didn't get to experience because of And I also had very unexpected grief which came out as anger after I had my daughter.
And I kept thinking, why on earth do I feel angry? This is like the best thing that I feel like has happened to me. I love my daughter. I love being a mother, but I was grieving the loss of my life before. It was, it's so sudden. All of a sudden you have all this control or you think you do. And then the next moment you feel like you have no
Mariah (05:08)
Yeah, and I think, you know, having room to name that and say those things out loud, like, I'm grieving even while I'm celebrating, you know, the birth of my daughter is something I'm joyful about, but I'm also grieving who I was before. I don't think there's a lot of spaces to just hold the complexity of all that together and to say the thing out loud and just say, like, I really miss my dad. And also, like, I'm so glad I became a mom, but, like, holding both of those things at the same time is really hard.
So I think doing that in community somehow I feel makes it a little bit easier and you realize that a lot of other people are navigating really complicated emotions too. And so I think it just offers a little bit of
Chanel Riggle (05:54)
Yeah, I am, you know, and I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent from the questions I had prepared to ask you, but I'm wondering too, if you think that our culture right now has a difficult time accepting that two things can be true at once. You mentioned you had to accept the fact that, You could grieve your father while also being happy about the birth of your son. This seems like a community problem, at least from what I'm
Mariah (06:32)
Yeah.
So I don't think it's modeled for us. I don't think we're really shown how to hold paradox well. And I think we see it in our culture, in our communities, where we just have these dividing lines. You're either Republican or you're Democratic, or you're Black or White. We just kind of create these boundaries around each other. And it's like, you can either be this or that. And I'm really interested in being both and. I'm really interested in.
you know, giving ourselves permission to both be sad and excited, scared and, you know, joyful. Like, I think when we do that for ourselves, we give other people permission to do it as well. And then I think our communities benefit from that because they see like, you know, being in relationship with ourselves and being in a relationship with others is complicated. Like we're humans. It's not always easy. And, you know, I can like someone's personality, I can enjoy being around them and not agree with their belief system or their values. And so like, how do we hold that tension?
Chanel Riggle (07:44)
And I love, I love that you're, you're bringing that up too. Like when I talk with this and episode one with Kay a little bit is it's thinking of community. Community doesn't mean that you have to like everybody, but like, how can we hold space for everyone's experiences in motherhood? So let's talk about the topic today a bit more in ways in which we can build community in our current seasons. So why do you think it's so important to consider what mental or physical season we're in when it comes to our expectations of building a motherhood
Mariah (08:28)
Yeah, I mean, I think for me it comes down to capacity and I think that can shift from day to day, like you said, you know, like whether we're having, you know, some mental health challenges, whether we're experiencing grief, and not only within ourselves, but in our community. Like I have a lot of close friends that, you know, they had some really big life changes happening at the same time that I did. And so, that became a little bit of a challenge, like how can we show up for each other when all of our capacity was changing? And so I think when you can kind of understand like where you're at with your capacity and like where your community is, you can kind of navigate those challenges a little bit easier with more realistic expectations. And I think you can just infuse those interactions with more grace and not get, you know, as frustrated with yourself or others as
Chanel Riggle (09:23)
That's a very common thread in these conversations with the different mothers that I've been talking with, not only in the podcast interviews, but also kind of in the comment section. There is a continual messaging of how do I, what's my capacity? Where's my energy at? How do I navigate these challenges? Do you have any specific ways that you can help us building community. So like, what are some practices we can incorporate into whatever season of life we're in so that we can find community? I know for myself, I'll bring this up a thousand times. You know, I send a lot of voice clips to my motherhood friends because it's like the quickest way. I'll just send them a voice clip like, you would not believe what's going on in my life right now or I'm thinking of you because... to sit there and type out a message, it's just often not very practical unless by God's grace my child is sleeping next to me and I have a moment where I can catch up.
Mariah (10:35)
is really hard these days. Yeah. You know, there are a lot of things. Yeah, there are a lot of things I've tried, like some have been successful, some haven't. And I think too, it kind of depends on where you are in your season. But you know, something that was really helpful for me in the first year, which I think, you know, that first year of motherhood is so intense and so raw. And I was lucky enough to be part of a breastfeeding group.
Chanel Riggle (10:38)
What are some other things we can do?
Mariah (11:04)
where I gave birth and I didn't go to the classes every week but we all did join a group text thread and so we all kind of had our babies around the same time and like that text thread was like a lifesaver because we were all going through these milestones in a similar kind of time frame and so we could just send those like you know 3 a .m. texts like oh my god my baby won't stop crying like what can I do and you know rather than just like needing someone to solve it, just having that validation of like, oh my gosh, I've also been having the same struggle this week. You know, it just made it seem a little bit more real and like we were going through it not alone. You know, we were all kind of in it together. So that was kind of cool to have like a cohort of women who were like in the same area as me. Even though we didn't really meet a lot in person, we like definitely all use that text thread as a resource for each other. So that was really helpful. Something that I'm kind of doing now in my current season, being in a new city, being in a new environment, I have a lot of close friends back home, but I haven't really made a lot of close friends here yet. So I'm trying to be really intentional about scheduling phone calls. You know, like just, I think there's two friends and I, and we have like a group chat and we just have it on our calendar every two weeks.
and we know like, okay, this is the evening that we're gonna check in, we're gonna FaceTime, we're gonna chat. And they're not even mothers, but just having that communication, that consistency of like, they're friends I've known for a really long time through different seasons of life. And just being able to check in with each other and like check in on our mental health, check in on our emotional health, like that's been a really great resource.
Um, and something else I've been kind of thinking about lately, just to reframe it for myself is, you know, thinking about like quality versus quantity. So I think as moms, we don't always have as much time to invest in building community if we don't already have that built in. But I think there is something really, um, special about, you know, even like once a month, if we can do something.
with others, it doesn't always have to be other mothers, but like with another group of women or like in a community, you know, that can be something that can be really soul nourishing and can kind of carry us through the next, you know, few weeks. So right now I'm doing like a nature journaling class and it's in person and it's just like three or four hours at a time, once a month with a few other women. And that has actually been very, very nourishing to me in this season of just like.
knowing that we're going to get together, we're going to be creative together, we're going to chat. So things like that, if you can't, you know, do something social or build community, maybe even once a week, can you do it once a month? And can you add some consistency to it? Because I think that helps too, like seeing the same people over time, over and over, I think does start to break down some of those walls and you start to feel more comfortable around each other.
So that's something also I'm kind of looking at, like what are activities I can do once a month or every other week where the time investment isn't as intense, but I get that consistency.
Chanel Riggle (14:32)
I think there's two great points that you've made there. One is get your hands busy. Even whether it's once a week or once a month, go outside or go do something where your body is moving. I recently, like literally very recently, found a local yoga place and I'm really struggling with heat on my body's pain.
but they have an outdoor deck, which is amazing. And it's like covered and heated. And that's been such a blessing because right now I need to move my body and even walking 20 minutes, like fast pace sometimes makes my pain worse. And so I've been getting depressed again because I can't move my muscles. So that's been a big blessing and it's given me a little bit of community building because...
The second point you made, or I should say the first, was it doesn't always have to be another mother in your motherhood community, like in your support, whatever that looks like. I was able to connect with a woman who is in her 50s and is having a divorce. I've been able to connect with a college student simply because I just showed up a little randomly to these yoga classes.
and I was able to show up for myself. And I think when we think of a topic like finding support as a mother, there's some things we really need to consider. We need to consider the fact that that consistency is not what it traditionally was before motherhood. Like for me, consistency was like every week or every weekend or every month. And now consistency could be like,
Mariah (16:16)
Yeah.
Chanel Riggle (16:24)
Yeah, I was able to have a conversation with a friend last Tuesday and then two weeks later we checked in and then two weeks after or three weeks after that I sent her another message. It's the intention not necessarily the quantity as you said and focusing to if you're in a place where you know, maybe or,
working or you're just parenting like non -stop, don't limit yourself to only having mom friends for that support and communication outside of outside of I've always really enjoyed talking to some of the older ladies that I meet too.
Mariah (17:10)
Yeah, it's something funny because like
Yeah, it's something unexpected that has been a bit of a surprise for me. Like, I don't know, I think we kind of have this like ideal because it's how my mom raised us. Like she had a lot of other close friends that were having babies at the same time and they just did everything together. Like they went to the zoo, they went to the library, they were like this group. And you know, my husband and I are a little bit older and so I have friends that have kids a lot older than ours or I have friends that are younger and like they're still single. They're just in different seasons of life.
So I haven't had that experience of like having friends that have kids the same age as me. And I think trying to make new friends that have kids the same age as our toddler is like very challenging because we're all just like trying to survive. I had this play date with a mom at the park and her kiddo was a month older or a month younger than Noah, but like
Mariah (18:12)
we were having like little bits of conversation in between like chasing our kids around the park because it's just like such a hands on time of motherhood where it's like you really just have to be, you know, kind of watching them very closely and there's a lot of interruption and it's hard, I think, to make new friends with other new moms. And I wasn't expecting that. But I think now that I've kind of like come to terms with it, I'm a lot more open in the kind of friendships that I'm looking for and
Honestly, like I'm all about the older ladies right now. I'm like give me all that grandma energy You know It's very it's very nurturing and they have a lot of wisdom to share and I think Our culture doesn't really put as much value on like intergenerational friendships and it's something I've really been craving and it's something I've been kind of intentionally looking for and the activities that I'm I'm doing and
So that's something that I think can be a gift, not only for us, but I think as you get older, you also, when I feel like you're leaving a legacy behind, you want to share the wisdom and the life experiences that you've gained. Even some friends that are in their 20s, I always think, oh man, yeah, I remember being in my 20s. And I try to give them a lot of encouragement, like, it's going to get easier, don't worry, things like that. So I think there's benefit to.
building community and friendships outside of just motherhood because they nourish you and support you in different ways.
Chanel Riggle (19:46)
Mm hmm. I agree. And I think one thing that surprised me and you mentioned this as well was when I grew up, my mom didn't necessarily have a ton of mother friends, but we had like one family in particular where she had three daughters and it was my brother and I am like two of those kids they like we very much just like grew up together outside of school.
So it was my brother and one of the girls, they went to preschool together. And then we just like for 10 years, we just continually like revolved around each other's lives. Like, oh, I have to work this weekend. Can you have all of the kids at your house? Sure. I like learned so much from that. And I got so much mentorship about what doing life together looked like without ever thinking about it until.
Mariah (20:32)
Wow.
Chanel Riggle (20:45)
I don't know, 17 years later after the fact. And that's been such a huge blessing. And I also feel, to come back a little bit to this concept of grief, I also feel a little bit of grief about it right now because I don't have that. I have two friends who I talk to on a more consistent basis online, but they don't live nearby. And I have...
a lot of women I know who are mothers and I just continually try to remind myself like this is just a season. I might have a couple years ahead of me where I have a really good mom friend and maybe we do life together. Maybe it's just for a couple months and then who knows? Like who knows what life is going to bring after that? Giving yourself grace and letting go of control. It's like very common themes in my
Mariah (21:41)
It's so hard. Well, I think this stage, and it sounds like we're both in kind of like the early motherhood stage, I think this stage can be the most isolating and the most just intense because of the stage of development that our babies are in. They're changing so quickly, they're growing so fast, and they just need more from us at this stage of their lives. So I think it can feel really full on. And then also, we probably have less capacity right now to have those.
Chanel Riggle (21:51)
Mm -hmm.
Mariah (22:10)
you know, new friendships. So I think it can be a bit isolating. And I think that's normal. And I think it is sad because maybe we wish it were different. But I think, you know, coming back to Grace and just realizing like, a lot of other moms are experiencing this. And maybe, like you said, right now, maybe our sense of community looks different. Maybe we're getting, you know, that from an online community or we're listening to podcasts like yours.
just so that we can feel less alone. But it could change. Like tomorrow, you could meet someone at a coffee shop and really hit it off and start doing stuff with your kiddos
Chanel Riggle (22:49)
It kind of reminds me of like dating again. Like, you know, like, who knows, like, maybe later today I can run into that old friend or and they're looking for connection or I can meet somebody completely new at the park and the library and it's, it's kind of funny how, you know, however many I think like eight years since I met my husband, like you kind of get into this mindset again, just like this hope for connection with a stranger.
Mariah (23:16)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I say the coffee shop. It actually happened to me, I did connect with another mom at our local coffee shop. And it was amazing. But I think, I think that's like importance of having those like third space places like this coffee shop in particular, how to kids area with a baby gate and toys. So like you could just go and hang out and like let your kid do whatever and like a contained space with another mom.
Chanel Riggle (23:19)
Um.
Mariah (23:48)
but like at a coffee shop. It was like so amazing. I'm like, how come all coffee shops don't have this? But finding those like third space places.
Chanel Riggle (23:53)
I love it. I love it when people make physical room for mothers, especially in the early
Mariah (24:02)
Yeah.
Chanel Riggle (24:05)
Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for chatting with me. I want to kind of wrap things up a little bit. I wanted to know if you had any final thoughts on helping the mothers in this space learn how to build or sustain community in motherhood that maybe we didn't get to
Mariah (24:05)
Yeah, because it facilitates those conclusions.
Yeah, I think something I've just been considering a lot and I kind of spoke on it earlier, but I think it was Brene Brown who was talking about the way that you build trust in relationships is consistency over time. So I've just been thinking about that a lot as I'm trying to build new community here. Just being aware that that's part of building trust with someone and it does take time and.
not to like feel bad if something's not happening right away or if I'm not getting to that deeper level of connection. And just reminding myself like, you know, kind of slow and steady. And that's really how people begin to be more vulnerable with each other. It's how you get to those kind of more quality relationships. So when I'm focusing on, okay, what do I have capacity for, you know, energy wise or time wise when I'm building community, I'm really kind of looking at that.
longer trajectory of like, I'm not just looking to do a bunch of social things to like see other people, like I'm really wanting to build long term quality relationships and I can pace myself. And so I think reminding myself and reminding other mothers to kind of pace yourself and not think you have to do it all at once, but to just be consistent, do it over time. And I think you'll start to really see that those relationships show up in your
Chanel Riggle (25:52)
love the advice that all of my podcast guests have been giving. And I don't think many of you are coming in here with any sort of like general message you really want to share. But like, you've all very much reiterate these concepts of like, give yourself time, start small, slow and steady. And, you know, don't, don't have these grand expectations.
I love that there's room to constantly be pleasantly surprised when it comes to building community in motherhood. Like when I started Motherhood Minute on Substack, my daughter was just over a year, I think. I think she was like 14 months old. We were still very much, I was nursing, I was getting up in the middle of the night But compared to the first year, I suddenly was just craving community and I couldn't find it.
because I was up in the middle of the night so much and during the day I was in survival mode and I had like one friend to message. I was tired. I'm just like tired with a capital T and one thing that I am continuing to learn whether it's in person or in the digital space, sometimes building community and motherhood has nothing to do with
Mariah (26:57)
I'm tired.
Chanel Riggle (27:18)
preconceptions of what a friendship might look like. Sometimes it's literally about showing up, even if it is at 1%. And for me, that was writing this newsletter, not thinking anyone was going to be reading it, but desperately hoping maybe there's one person, even if I know them in person, maybe there's just one mother who is also reading this at 3am because they're craving the conversation.
but they're too exhausted to have it in person. And it's shocking every time somebody subscribes to this newsletter because I think I'm just writing to myself most of the time and it's like sending up smokestacks. Like someone please, like you're not alone. Like tell me I'm not alone
Mariah (28:09)
Yeah, but that energy resonates and like you're sending that energy out into the world. And I think, you know, I connected because I think we're in very similar stages of motherhood. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I'm also on Instagram late at night or on Substack And it's like, yeah, being seen by another mother that's in a similar stage of life is so just validating and so necessary. And even if it looks different than having that in -person community that maybe we grew up with and our mothers had.
It's still important and I don't think you should, yeah, give yourself credit. Give yourself credit for what you're doing because it is important and it is needed.
Chanel Riggle (28:48)
Thank you. I really appreciate that. I'm just doing what I
Mariah (28:55)
Yeah, it matters. It really matters.
Chanel Riggle (28:55)
And right now it looks like a conversation per week. And then who knows, maybe I'll be writing on a more consistent basis. Just going with the flow. That's the motto of motherhood for me.
Mariah (29:09)
Hmm.
following your season.
Chanel Riggle (29:16)
Yes.
Mariah, thank you so much. I have really enjoyed talking to you today and I want to keep it as close as possible to our 30 minute mark in respect to any moms who are listening to this on their commute or lunch break or nap time. 30 minutes is a privilege for sure. So for all of our readers, listeners, viewers, whatever you are, I always share the transcript.
as well for those of you who do not have the capacity to listen to other people talk, but you definitely want to be in the conversation. Been there plenty of times. Thank you for joining us. If you have any questions for Mariah or you want to get connected with her, I will post all of her information with the episode and you can leave a comment and she will be a guest author. So she should be notified for all of those questions as well.
Maria, thank you so much for joining me
Mariah (30:17)
Thank you, I really appreciate the space that you're holding and creating for other moms.
Chanel Riggle (30:22)
Thank you! Alright, goodbye
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Loved this conversation! Thank you Mariah and Chanel x
Great interview with Mariah Friend! :)