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Spill The TEA
If you missed your initiation into womanhood, you’re not alone. Truth tellers spill the tea about the misguided trappings of what it means to be a woman. Listen in as they tackle the myths and realities of being a daughter, sister, mother, wife, and friend. Find a sense of community and inspiration with these podcast creatives. You are bound to recognize yourself in their collective experiences.
Spill The TEA
Rising with Purpose: The Journey, Not the Destination
The quest for purpose often becomes a pressure-filled search for a singular calling or destination, but what if we've been approaching it all wrong? In this vulnerable and thought-provoking conversation, we dismantle the myth that finding your purpose happens in one revelatory moment or that pursuing your passion means you'll "never work a day in your life."
Through personal stories and honest reflections, we explore how purpose frequently reveals itself in retrospect, sometimes emerging from our most challenging moments and redirecting our life's trajectory in unexpected ways. Listen as we share our journeys of finding alignment between mind, heart, and intuition—and the courage required to recognize when we've drifted from our authentic path.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when we examine how career choices often happen through a combination of intention, circumstance, and sometimes even childhood inclinations that hint at our natural talents. We reflect on the concept of "calling" and whether we're all meant to experience that profound sense of direction that some describe.
Perhaps most powerfully, we celebrate how community becomes fundamental to purpose discovery and fulfillment. Our own women's circle demonstrates how intentional gathering creates spaces where authenticity thrives, accountability flourishes, and ideas transform into meaningful action rather than remaining theoretical discussions.
Ready to shift your perspective on purpose? Join us for this insightful exploration of how staying curious, connecting with your values, and building supportive community might be the real secret to living a purpose-driven life. Subscribe now and discover why purpose is more about the journey of alignment than any final destination.
Grab a warm drink and join us- we saved a seat for you. Don't forget to stay updated with Spill the TEA by following us on Facebook at Women Gathering and Growing with TEA or on Instagram at Grow with TEA.
Welcome back, friends. We are diving into the topic of discovering your purpose and I jumped right in because Tracy immediately asked does anybody know their purpose? And that's kind of how I felt coming into tonight. So I'm sorry, Tracy, I just did jump right into the topic but I felt the same way. So here we are, discovering your purpose, let's jump right in. But I felt the same way.
Tracy:So here we are, discovering your purpose. Let's jump right in. I don't know. I was reading through the questions and I'm like these are ongoing questions. I continue to ask myself I don't think that I've arrived here, and does anybody ever feel like I've arrived at my purpose?
Kerri:So when I realized this is what we were talking about, I was like, well, crap, that's a big question and I. But I started to think about. I'm like well, what is the saying? There's a saying and the saying is do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life, right? And then I started really thinking about that and it was like that saying is a bunch of crap. I hate that saying.
Tracy:Why do you hate it, Kara? Tell us more.
Kerri:Why would you, do you not hate it?
Tracy:I don't have that much emotion about the saying no, I just don't think. I haven't even given it a second thought since you said it.
Kerri:I just don't think it's true, like, even if you do something you love, I was thinking like we all love doing the retreat, right, do we all love it? We can agree on that, but would you say we don't do any work to like make it happen?
Jodie:But it's a fun kind of work. It is a fun kind of work, but it's still. That's what they're getting at. If you love what you do for a job, then you're loving what you do every day. You're not waking up thinking, oh, I can't go back to that factory again, or whatever.
Kerri:I know. I just don't think it sets people up for success. I think you have to do things you do love, but there will be work.
Mary:So there are portions of the work that is less desirable.
Kerri:And so.
Mary:I think that's what Carrie's saying. So when the people got in an argument, did you love that part of it? No, so we are contributing to our purpose, but there are some pitfalls to that contributing to our purpose. But there are some pitfalls to that.
Jodie:Yeah, Like I was thinking I'd love to own my own business, but would I love to do the books and would I love to do, like HR stuff and letting people know there are parts that you would love and there were parts that you wouldn't care so much for. But the parts that you love are enough to keep you going back to deal with the parts you don't love.
Mary:I agree and so sometimes that scale is it balanced? Or you hope that the stuff you love is, uh, actually down here, because it's weighing it down.
Kerri:I was just thinking that, like the work, regardless of it's like what you call your work, like what you do nine to five every day, like the work necessitates the things you love in one way or another, like whether it's your nine to five job that you do because it brings you money and it may not be your deepest, darkest passion, but it's something you enjoy, you do it well and you continue to do it and you're happy to do it, but it doesn't like light you up inside every day.
Jodie:Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't there been studies about this? Like, you can do something you're very passionate about, like let's take baseball, for instance. A kid could be very passionate about baseball. Get into the major leagues. Once you start getting paid for something, it then becomes a job, which is why, once in a while, they have strikes right, they all go on strike. You're getting paid to play baseball, dude like millions and millions of dollars every year, but once you get paid for something, it takes the joy out of it joy out of it.
Mary:It's true, Jodi, there are studies, because there was a study through blood donations, for example, where people were paid to donate blood and the actual number of donations went down, because it's more of an altruistic thing that they want to do. They don't want to get paid for it. It's in some book. Lots of research done on it was about employee motivation and what motivates, you know, people, obviously, and rewards actually do not. They do not in the long term. Because he has this quote that says what science knows and what business does doesn't match up.
Jodie:Amen.
Brooke:When we're talking about finding our purpose, I feel like people think about it too hard and expect that you really only have one purpose in life, and that's why it's so hard to come down to this one exact answer. Because you're like I, have so many things I'm into and I think it's a very pivotal point to realize that finding your purpose isn't usually like just that one time event. It's really an ongoing exploration so like you're really not going to have all the answers right away which allows yourself to grow and to evolve, which also allows your purpose to shift and experience new things.
Kerri:I was thinking, brooke, along those same lines, that sometimes we're going through life and things happen, and sometimes you look back and you're like, oh, that was the purpose Exactly. So I was thinking that too, that sometimes it may not feel like something served a purpose per se, or that you did something for a purpose, but maybe later down the line you look back and you're like, oh yeah, I like even like something you wish for, but you thought was never going to happen. But then all of a sudden you have it and you look back and you're like, oh yeah, I did want this and that's why I've done all of these things, because I wanted to arrive at this moment.
Brooke:Right Definitely.
Mary:Yeah, I think it comes from suffering and adversity that when you know divorce, my life went on a different trajectory and then the government shut down in 2010. My life takes a different trajectory. I was just telling that story to someone today about how I came to work at the county. And you know, covid takes us on this podcast trajectory on Tracy's book and then it spins off into this, and so then you know I'm meandering on a journey to the purpose.
Tracy:But maybe the purpose, I think, is what we're saying, isn't a destination, it is the journey. Exactly, it is the journey, or could it be that it's like a higher level thing. So if I had to broadly categorize what my purpose would be, it would be to be helpful, like really broad. I think that I'm here to help or maybe be here to teach, I don't know or connect.
Mary:I would say we can just like keep distilling it down by asking like, why, right? And I think what you would end up is that nugget of purpose yeah.
Tracy:So if you kept saying okay, why are you here to help? Why?
Mary:are you here?
Tracy:to teach. Why are you here? To help connect to others.
Kerri:I think you get to love eventually you get to what love?
Tracy:yeah, I think so.
Kerri:Yeah, like just wanting to love people, loving your name, helping yeah yeah, I can get behind that chair, thank you.
Mary:I love you too. Coincidentally, I took a six-week course in a leadership course on finding your purpose, oh sweet. I think I'd have more to say.
Tracy:Although there was wait. Here's the first question. Did you find?
Mary:it Because it was focused on work. Yes, because you, you know you worked through and I think there were more specific questions, targeted questions that distilled it down about you know what my department's purpose is and all of that. But there was a story that they told where you know how John F Kennedy he had the moonshot, we're going to put people on the moon. And there's a story that goes along the lines of he was at NASA and he comes across a janitor and asks the janitor of course he doesn't know what he's doing and says what is your purpose here? And he said I'm putting a man on the moon. And so that was a light bulb moment of regardless of what your role is. That was the purpose and NASA and that janitor saw his role as keeping the space clean so that scientists could focus on putting a man on the moon.
Tracy:At work, it's easy to go back to what is the mission, what is your vision. Yeah, that is easier, but in a lifetime I do think it's an evolving thing, like Brooke said, and it's a myth that you're going to reach that place Unless I don't know what if you thought about your work as like I'm moving humanity forward Like you could just go bigger.
Mary:Yeah.
Kerri:Everything you do, how you act, how you talk to people, you're moving humanity forward in one way or another. Sorry, Brooke.
Tracy:Well, if you are, what if you're a bad guy Like? What if you're still moving? Humanity forward with your badness.
Brooke:Ok, there is some awakening to a degree and different emotions that are going to open up with that dark. So it sucks because a lot of the times you are going to have that catalyst of a person in your life. But that person was kind of meant to be because it was, like you know, the computer chip in the computer. It allowed that certain hard drive to run.
Tracy:Yeah, it rewired it. I get that.
Kerri:It's just like Tracy you said bad guys, like we've all had a bad bad people in our lives but we're still able to move forward. But we know they have an effect on on us and how we move forward. So the same thing like overall high perspective.
Mary:I'm curious how people chose their line of work. Was it something in you know intentional, or did you stumble?
Kerri:into it. I stumbled into it for sure, sort of like I did. So I wanted to be. Originally I thought I was going to be like when I was transitioning from high school to college and like thinking about a career. I thought I wanted to be an art teacher, which we all know. I still love art. But then life took hold and I got thrown into the workforce sooner than I might have preferred. I just kind of went into the helping profession and the teaching. I started at BOCES as like a one-on-one aid and then transitioned into after school. So I still got kind of into the school working with kids doing creative things. So it's still kind of aligned. You know, I was still getting to do some of those things that I thought maybe not in the same way I had envisioned as a 17 or 18 year old girl. But, like Brooke was saying, through the journey I still managed to be able to see today some of the things that that 17, 18 year old girl wanted, just not in the way I had necessarily envisioned.
Tracy:In some ways I fell into what I do because of some of the traumas that happened when I was 15, 16 years old. But if I think before then there was a video and when my cousins and I were younger, maybe like upper elementary age, and in the video my brother you can hear him, I don't know if he was holding the video camera or next to it we were all playing. Hear him, I don't know if he was holding the video camera or next to it. We were all playing probably wiffle ball or wiffle ball or kickball, something like that playground game. But I was telling people what to do and helping divide up teams. And he's like, oh, my goodness, there she goes again. She has to tell everybody how to play the game. I just remembered that and I'm like, oh, maybe this wasn't all about the stuff that happened. Maybe I was doing it before then too.
Mary:Yeah, being the leader.
Kerri:Yes, leading games, leading games Making people play.
Mary:Let's go play. I remember enrolling in college and I did not know what I wanted to do, but I just I mean, that was what the family said I was going to do. So, okay, I'm going to go to college. And I remember taking a sociology class and it just seemed like everything clicked and made sense. But then what do you do with sociology? Right, you know, it's a study of systems and structures and how people behave in those structures, and people's behavior just interests me. I thought, well, I'll major in it and then see what happens, because I really didn't know what I wanted to do after that. And so then it just seemed, you know, when school was over, that I find a job in human services, understanding humans, and that's what I did. And I applied for every job that you know in the newspaper. I clipped out the clippings because it was back then. I actually still have all of the, a lot of the clippings that I applied to.
Kerri:They're in a file. They're alphabetical. I can see it.
Tracy:I'm sure they are. They're on her resume Highlighted.
Mary:I am certain I have the Hillside Children's Center clipping. I know that there was one for epilepsy society or something like that and I'm like I'll apply for that my brother's epileptic.
Jodie:I can tell you the first line of your cover letter when you applied at Hillside. You can, I can. What was her letter? What did it start look?
Tracy:no further.
Jodie:Really right, mary?
Tracy:yes, yep good job little thing I'm like wow this woman is really confident.
Mary:I like her I'm so glad you thought that and that.
Tracy:What a bullshitter I saw that I would have been like, oh, she's full of shit.
Jodie:She wasn't. We looked no further and we were very, very pleased.
Kerri:That's awesome, Mary. Good for you.
Tracy:Jodi, you've had a fun career.
Jodie:I have.
Tracy:A career journey. How did you get there?
Jodie:Well, I was working at the place where Mary was hired and it was a really stressful day and we all used to massage each other during stressful times, you know, rub each other's shoulders or whatever and I was doing that for one of my co-workers one day and she said you missed your calling. I said what are you talking about? She said you should have been a massage therapist and I've always wanted to be. So I left her office, went to my office, looked in the yellow pages, found the closest school, called them and set up an appointment.
Tracy:Yeah, and when you were in school? Yes, when you were in school, you got to practice on all of us. That was I did.
Jodie:Yeah.
Kerri:I loved it. So sad I didn't know you then.
Mary:Jodi, don't you have a picture of you as a little girl and you're massaging your dad's shoulders?
Jodie:I am. Yes, I was actually two and we were driving to Florida. This was way before car seats Please don't do the math and I would stand behind my dad while he drove and rub his shoulders. You know that. My mom told me that was my job, so I felt really important, as my dad drove straight through to Florida. So, yeah, I have a picture. I have a picture of that somewhere. I really need to frame it, bring it into the office.
Tracy:Remember when we had freedom to like move around the car.
Jodie:Yes, lay down and take a nap, you know back at the station wagon.
Mary:My mom would always say you're on my hair, oh no. She had really long hair and so we'd be say you're on my hair. Oh no, she had really long hair and so we'd be leaning.
Tracy:You know, because we're not in a seatbelt, no, Right, there were more kids in the back seat than there were seats. Yes, always. You brought up a word that kept going through my mind as I was reading through the prep work for tonight and that was calling. And I've been thinking a lot about religion lately and the people that are called to go into, like the priesthood, or said calling. I was like I wonder if that's similar to how somebody that has had that calling feels.
Tracy:I think people don't look for the calling enough in all areas of their life do you think people that get to that level they're like I should be a priest or I should be a nun, because to me that's like such a bold choice. Right, this is a lifetime commitment to an alternative path. Thank. God you spoke to them. Yeah, so like literally called them up Like did they get a phone call? Yeah, that's my question.
Kerri:I wish it worked that way, if they were called in that way, like to serve in that way, and they had such a profound calling Right. Are the rest of us looking for a profound calling in any way, like in some other facet of our life? And if we're not, should we be?
Brooke:Yeah, I'll throw this back to the point that you made earlier, how someone always has to be like the villain. In a sense, I feel like we're all playing the role that we're supposed to be playing and it all comes together to this greater picture. We're all playing our calling to the extent that we're supposed to be and, yes, you could always answer the calling a little bit sooner. But there is also some learning that had to be done within that time, and maybe people weren't fully evaluating the lessons that life had to teach them. So life's just going to continue to throw you lessons until you finally learn it.
Tracy:I had that same discussion earlier this morning. It was more about governmental societies and my response was maybe, as societies, our lessons are being repeated because we're not listening and we're not learning from them. But my response to that person also was it's the same thing. It's a micro and a macro issue. That's funny Twice in one day.
Brooke:I love when that happens. One more time and I'm going to start looking for a lesson.
Mary:The burning question is are you thinking of the nunnery Tracy? No, Affirmative.
Brooke:No, that's a hard. No, that's a non. Nope. Married combat. It'd be called a combat or no?
Tracy:I think it's both. That's either a nunnery or a convent, but did you know, when back in Shakespearean times, in that Shakespeare play, when is it in Hamlet he says get yourself to a nunnery. He's saying that she's a whore. I think I've got to Google that because I want to make sure that I say it right. But it is not what we think it means.
Mary:Oh, then I misspoke, so then maybe you are.
Tracy:Well, maybe I am a whore. It's in Ophelia.
Kerri:Maybe you're just living your purpose.
Tracy:Actually I was right your purpose. Actually, I was right. It's the contemporary equivalent of telling a young woman you are breaking up with to either choose between becoming a nun or a prostitute. Oh my, you say, get thy to a nunnery. And it's from Ophelia, not Hamlet.
Mary:So it could go either way. Get yourself to a nunnery. It could go either way. Get yourself to a nunnery, is that?
Tracy:it's either be a nun or a whore Wait wait a second, it is Hamlet.
Mary:I was right. Don't get answers from Reddit. Oh, yes, yes, so Ophelia is a character in Hamlet correct.
Tracy:Yes, yes, ophelia is a character in Hamlet, correct. Yes, yes, philia is a character in hamlet. Hamlet says to the young woman who he's having a relationship with that if thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry in here. But he says, give thyself to an honoring.
Mary:We just went down a rabbit hole, a hamlet hole a hamlet hole I go back to our origin story of when we started gathering and how that was received by the community. That yes, to some it was a threat, and well, I guess that's the one that stands out, that we must be up to something. No good.
Kerri:And because we're gathering and reading books, yeah, and then to you guys it felt like a calling right. It was a calling.
Tracy:It was something that you could actually. That's a really good point, carrie. It was a calling that I could not. I had no choice but to answer it. It was either do that, I could not, I had no choice but to answer it. It was either do this or lose yourself.
Kerri:Which really is kind of the whole thing about finding your purpose right. Like you, either do it or you do lose yourself. You either stay in alignment with who you are, what you think and what you know maybe your intuition is telling you, or you don't. And when you don't, you abandon yourself.
Tracy:Right. Have you ever been out of a line so far, out of alignment that I mean? I know I wrote a little bit about feeling that way in the book and like finding myself like having to choose myself or that path that I was on. That was not who I was.
Kerri:I feel like probably everyone on here could say that about any relationship that wasn't working Right. Yeah you get when it ends. You get to a point where it's like you're going to abandon yourself or you're going to change the trajectory of your purpose, because what's happening is not your purpose of your purpose, because what's happening is not your purpose.
Mary:I'm imagining this picture of your mind lining up with your heart, lining up with your gut and your intuition. And when that is not a straight line or all connected, then you know something has to change. And are you brave enough to change it, to make the change?
Tracy:and then when you have been out of alignment so many times that when you find yourself in it that you're skeptical, you're suddenly hyper vigilant. Is this true? Is this real, can this be?
Mary:you're constantly scanning but yeah, that my imagination, because alternatives can be scary and so I can be talked back into something. So if I'm pretty convincing of myself, like oh, maybe I'm overreacting.
Kerri:Yeah, you're talking about Trace, like when you're scanning. Is this true? Could this be?
Tracy:I have recently been trying to go to a place where I say, if the best thing could happen, what is that? That's very helpful.
Kerri:I try to go there Like what is that? What does it look like, what does it feel like? And can I just live there for a little while? Because usually, if I'm scanning and checking all those things, it's a little like anxious feeling. And so the way for me to get out of that anxious feeling is to just allow myself to believe that the best can happen.
Mary:Yeah, yeah.
Kerri:I think that's the start of manifesting in my mind.
Tracy:Yeah, there's something about. It's probably a Brene Brownie, I know. Actually I noticed she talks about rehearsing tragedy and how it's never helped in the actual tragedy. Never once was somebody like wow, I'm so glad that I rehearsed that for the last seven years. Yeah, it didn't happen the way that I was rehearsing.
Mary:Right, and so you suffered imagining it, and then you suffer doing it.
Tracy:Yeah, so instead of if you're going to waste all this time, this mind energy, on coming up with stories, at least make them stories you enjoy, right yeah?
Kerri:Make them the best.
Tracy:I think, for me too, authenticity always goes back to values and being in touch with what your values are. Just recently I was having a conversation with somebody and I think I've been pretty set on what my values are, because we talk about it a lot through tea. I talk about it a lot at work, so I even have a little list by my desk upstairs. It has the values that I feel like I live by. I want to add kindness to mine, and I don't know if it's my age or what, but I really just want to add kindness to mine. So I'm going to you can do it.
Mary:Thanks, man. Where's your list?
Tracy:It's upstairs oh yeah, I do.
Mary:I want to do you have a post-it note?
Tracy:No, upstairs, everything is upstairs.
Kerri:Chesa, I hate to say this, but I'm sitting here a little shocked.
Tracy:Like kindness, wasn't on your list. Oh thanks, Carrie. That's so nice that my top three failed. Well, first of all, every time I've done the exercise, they tell you two, and I've already got three. I've already tell you two and I've already got three. I've already pushed the envelope and I've already not listened. So mine has three. Now it's going to have four. I think you can have as many as you want. I am. I'm just going to. Yeah, now that I'm this age, nobody that's whoever created their original lesson didn't give me enough. Yeah, these are queen rules. I love that you think I'm kind, Carrie, I don't always get that.
Kerri:Well, I do think you're kind, but I'm shocked that you wouldn't say that being kind is on your list of things that you value.
Jodie:What are the other is on your list of things that you value. What are the other things on your list?
Tracy:my other things are growth, creativity and community. Those are my three values.
Kerri:I didn't realize you had.
Tracy:You thought you had to have a limited list though, either, like well, no, it just is the exercise that we keep doing over and over at different work events. So, whether it's like a leadership exercise, whoever came up with the original exercise, you know. They give you the sheet with like three, three columns of all the yeah. Then they're like cut it down to 10, and that's difficult. And then they're like cut it down to five, and that's even more difficult. And then they're like choose two.
Mary:So consider this If one of them is growth, your list is growing to four. There you go.
Kerri:Again, I'm going to take it back. I think you could just write love, and it would cover all of the good things.
Tracy:It would cover all the good things I like. Love. Carrie, You're convincing me today. I came with a negative attitude this evening. I think I'm negative, I just was low energy.
Mary:Yeah, you had low energy.
Kerri:I was gonna say and I'm sitting here with two different caffeinated drinks yin and yang.
Mary:I was thinking the reading through the questions and finding strength and community and I'm saying to myself, duh, that is what we do, that is our purpose in team, the Empowering Alliance, and so that builds momentum and strength when there are groups of people together.
Tracy:Do you think we got lucky in finding that purpose early in life? And I'm interested maybe because Brooke's had it her entire life, because she's known us her entire life. So I'm interested One do we think we got lucky finding this type of purpose? And I'm interested in Brooke's perspective because she's always known that women should be in community?
Kerri:I think it would be fun if we all said how this does give us purpose, like us gathering.
Tracy:I love that. Yeah, that's great, but Brooke spill the beans.
Brooke:I feel like it definitely has given me purpose and I feel like right now society and my generation is kind of at a point where we don't fully socialize anymore and the lessons that have been taught generation to generation slowly are not being taught anymore either, in a situation where I was raised within this community, in this mindset, knowing that women have to have community really to be able to move forward in life, especially in raising a family too, like community, is very important. Going back to my point of my generation, I feel like Erin and I kind of are like catalysts to our generation because we are the fortunate ones that are able to continue on these lessons that are being forgotten over time.
Tracy:That is so profound.
Brooke:Thank you.
Tracy:You're doing the whole namaste thing.
Mary:I think it's tough when you know in your younger years it's not tough. In your younger years Having friends is kind of your community is set up for it because you're in school and it's proximity, and then when you leave school everybody scatters to the wind and you and nobody's together. And so we didn't, we don't learn how to make friends. I think they're age 30 to find and gather this group. That seems pretty late in life to me. I was like that's so early. I wouldn't say it felt early to me, but maybe it is for some people.
Tracy:I think, developmentally, though, mary, we were doing stuff that people usually do at this stage of life, at that earlier stage.
Mary:We were gathering intentionally.
Tracy:Yeah.
Mary:And there's a difference between gathering at the ballpark because your kids play sports together, right. Yeah, sports together, right. Like we were having deep conversations about topics that mattered to us and we stayed curious and wanted to know more, wanted to know ourselves more.
Kerri:I'm so glad you said that. I keep thinking about the word curious. Like I just feel like people don't remain curious enough about so many things. I feel like that's where we're at in the world, like there's this side and that side and there's no curiosity in between, and it just is so frustrating to me. It's like polarizing, where we're roadblocked, there's no conversation, there's no curiosity, there's no desire to understand, and so, like if we were to talk about what purpose, like for me, all of us gathering is, that would be it, that, like I know I can say things that maybe are uncomfortable for me, sometimes I'm not even proud of, it's not my shining moment, but I can say those things to you guys and I can come back next week and we can be okay.
Tracy:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know how our different seasons have had different things? Like our first season, we kept talking about this thread of knowing, and this season I think you're right, carrie it's about curiosity. It's been a theme through each one of these podcasts that are about rising, which I wouldn't have, at the beginning, thought I wouldn't have connected those two. I mean, yes, they're both really cool things. Yes, rising and curiosity, but I wouldn't have put them together. I think we might be on to something. We have a little nugget.
Mary:Or the retreat 2026.
Tracy:Oh curiosity.
Mary:It could be all science experiments.
Tracy:We could be like Carrie. What was the task that we were supposed to do that I've now forgotten.
Kerri:Oh well, I kind of just said what I thought. I said what purpose does us gathering bring you all? So what I just said was like the purpose for me is that I get to be my authentic self with you all, and I have no fear of doing that. What I continually hope is that you all know who I am. So if I'm being authentic with you and maybe we don't disagree or we don't agree or something goes awry, that my authentic self can show up and be like what the fuck and we can get through the what the fuck and be fine, you know, through that.
Tracy:Yeah, loving people through the ugly parts is really important.
Mary:You know to contemplate that. What is my purpose? It is, it's sharing moments like this and laughing and filling my cup. This always feels like filling my cup. Maybe beforehand I feel like my cup is depleted, but because we're doing work and to record a podcast, but at the end it just it fills me. So that's my purpose, yeah.
Jodie:Such a fulfillment of the need for friendship and sisterhood. I never had a sister and now I've got all of you, so that's amazing to me and just the unconditional love. And, like you said, carrie, I feel like I can just be my worst self, which I have been at times, and it's okay. Someone will bring me back to reality and we'll discuss it and get through it and then we're good and I like that.
Brooke:I will say my purpose of having this community is it hits my need for connection, belonging and support. I feel like I thrive in an environment where I'm understood and where I'm valued, and all of those things are met within this community. So it offers a lot of layers of meaning and benefits, not only for, like, personal well-being, but also it's like a collective growth for all of us.
Tracy:Honestly, I feel like I don't know. The purpose for me is that this is, this is my group of people, that you're my group of people. So I I don't know, I don't know how to put it into words and I usually have all the words and I just don't have them right now but we're your tribe, this is my tribe.
Mary:Yes, I was thinking that too, Jodi. I was going to say that.
Tracy:Yes, I was thinking that too, jodi. I was going to say that, yeah, this is my tribe and this is. I'm so blessed that we found each other. I don't know that's the purpose. I think the purpose is to feel safe and to feel loved and to feel held and comforted, and I get all of that from this group and also pushed, and also I love that this is a group of human beings that if we don't like something, we just go change and fix it.
Brooke:That's exactly one of the biggest reasons why I like this group, because there is a very big account for accountability and self-awareness within this group. So I've been in other situations where like, yeah, you can do something wrong, but when you don't own up to it or try to make change on it, it makes for a very resentful situation. So having a group that's very self-aware within all of these challenges or the fun things that we come to cross it just makes it that much more influential.
Jodie:I'm very excited about all of our accomplishments through the years because, you know, a lot of people will sit around and talk about how, oh well, we really should do something about this and we really should, but nothing ever comes to fruition. But we've done that, we've done the fundraisers, we've done the things and I love that. I love that this is a group of we don't just sit around and talk about it, we do it, and holding each other accountable makes that happen, and I just I love that about this group.
Brooke:Everybody pulls their weight, which is really nice, and there's an understanding that when people are down and can't pull their weight, the rest of us come together, which I feel like that's something we've talked about before.
Mary:It's like we serve each other while serving others.
Tracy:Yes, yeah, that's the purpose for me as community. That once, which is one of my values is this community. Yeah, yeah.
Kerri:Sorry guys, did you just add another word to your list? No, community was already on it.
Tracy:Okay. I just enacted it, I just used it. I just pushed it. Acted it, I just used it, I just pushed it. All right. Well, it's one of our questions, though that's on here how do you stay motivated to do this? I think we stay motivated because we don't just talk about the things we do the things.
Tracy:And when I hear people that just go and talk about and talk about, and talk about, and talk about, and we always take it to the next level of oh, wouldn't it be cool? If okay, then let's do it and we do yeah, and then we do yeah so yeah, that's super awesome. I'm sorry, kerry, I interrupted you.
Kerri:I'm I don't know what I was saying.
Tracy:No clue like you're bringing us to the end.
Kerri:Oh yeah, so I did think that this was a good place perhaps for us to talk about how folks can make tea this week, in the coming weeks.
Tracy:Thoughts yes. So how to make tea for me this week would be what are those things that you keep saying? Oh, wouldn't it be great if, wouldn't it be so awesome if we did a, b and c? The difference in cultivating, your purpose is the doing so. Do the thing. Don't write the thing down this week, don't tell your. Tell somebody about the thing, do the thing, because that is how you live in. Your purpose is you start doing the things. So get curious, folks.
Jodie:Yes, Spill the tea.
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