Building Found Family

Sometimes it's the people who aren't related to you that feel the most like home. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hi everyone, welcome back to. But what Will People Say? I'm your host, disha Mazzappa, and this is a South Asian Insuraisal, relationship and Lifestyle podcast. Welcome back for another episode. Hi everybody, I hope you all had an excellent Thanksgiving and spent some time with the people who feel like home and in the spirit of people who feel like home.

Speaker 1: 0:31

This week's episode is a solo episode. It is from the suggestion box, so the suggestion box application whatever is in the show notes all the time. So if you ever want to drop like a request for an episode, just look in the show notes, you can find it. It's anonymous so you can submit whatever you want. But this submission was requesting an episode about creating found family and getting rid of this limiting belief that South Asians teach you that you have to stick with your family so you don't die alone. And I know a lot of you to some extent will create a bit of found family, even if your family's got on board with your choice and partner, because that's just life and we're going to get into that in this week's episode. So before we jump in, I do want to remind you all that I am not a therapist. This is just kind of my rambling thoughts, things I have learned. I'm also in therapy, so things I've learned in therapy and I always feel like it's just a different perspective, like I'm not a professional, so like don't take this as advice, this is just me talking. There is a therapist online I don't know her name, but her hashtag is in the trenches with you and I feel like that's me as a host here, like I'm going through it with you guys. So don't feel like I have all the answers. I'm just out here trying my best and I hope you're all trying your best too. So, without further ado, let's get into today's episode.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Okay, so let's just jump into this. What is found family found family are people in your life who feel like family but are not blood related to you and this can seem very foreign to South Asians, because we are so obsessed with family but only the ones you are blood related to and you have to have like 1000% loyalty to them and never question anything. And literally this mentality the person who submitted this was like you have to stick with your family so you don't die alone, as in like that is what she was raised to believe, not that she thinks that. You know, and a lot of us were raised like that, that if we abandon our family, that we're just going to like die alone on the street or something, and that I can start off from the start and say is not true, you will be just fine. I think this idea of you like taking any sort of leap that is a quote unquote selfish choice will lead to your detriment, is the biggest limiting belief that especially women in our culture need to undo and unlearn, because it stops us from doing literally everything. But before we get into where found family can seem so foreign to us, we have to understand where this comes from in our culture, this idea that family loyalty is the most important thing. And yes, we come from a community based culture and there are lots of incredible and amazing things about that. But here's a thing and we have to put on our monkey brain hats for this one we got to go back to caveman times.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Women are in charge of the social bonds and you can look up all the research you want about it on your own time. This is why gossip is so important in human societies, because we are social creatures and gossip is our bonding agent gossiping and chit chatting about what's going on what's the tea. That's what holds a community together, and because we are social beings, we need other people. I mean, if the pandemic taught us anything, it is how desperately we need human interaction, because shit hit the fan so hard. And guess who does the social bonding? Women. That's what we do. We sit around the fire and we, you know, harvest the vegetables and we talk about the day. Who's doing what? What are the kids up to? What are the men up to? What is happening in the village? We are the social bonders and so all the pressure to maintain social bonds sits on our shoulders and that is why there's so much more pressure on women and there's so much more like what's the word stigma around us breaking social bonds, because that is like, literally, our role and like men are not expected to do any of that. And this isn't just true in South Asian culture. I think the pressure and the stigma of it all is very South Asian.

Speaker 1: 5:34

But like women being the social bonders is you see it everywhere Like women are the ones who plan the parties and host everything and manage the social calendar. Like, literally, my husband does no planning when it comes to like social life. He maintains his friendship with his guy. Friends, like by sending one text a month in the group chat and never responding to anybody, whereas I'm the one who's like oh, we have friends giving next weekend. Oh, we have to send out Christmas cards or Christmas presents for these people. Oh, we have a New Year's Eve party. Oh, like, we're going to host holiday brunch. Like that's what I do, like, and I love it, I enjoy it, so I don't mind doing it and like it's just like you see it everywhere.

Speaker 1: 6:18

If you are in a very hetero relationship, like I am, you are likely the person who literally does all that shit, like make sure that birthday cards are sent out and make sure to get coffee or tea with the people that matter in your life, just to like chit, chat and catch up and maintain those bonds, and it's super important. And so, while we're trying to remove the stigma of breaking a social bond on the South Asian side, you do have the power when it comes to creating found family for yourself, because you don't just, you know, break social bonds. If you were to do that. You create them, you form them, you nurture them and when you're in control of that, you have the ability to create a found family, but we still have to go through all the brown people things that impact this.

Speaker 1: 7:12

And the biggest thing is that South Asian culture, we are very into our conditional love, and not just conditional love, but like relationships are transactional, like you are provided with praise and love and affection when you perform accordingly, and a lot of us grow up in like zero tolerance households in terms of like making mistakes, like and if you're a girl and you have any sort of brothers in your life or close male cousins in your life, you very distinctly see the difference between how you are treated and how they're treated, whether that's what they wear and who they go out with and what they do. But also just like what is the opportunities presented to them versus you. And like the pressure is way more on the women. Like I grew up and it was straight, not just straight a, straight a, pluses across the board, ap honors, graduated like very high up ranked in my class, all of this stuff and my brother gets away with like an average B, okay, and guess what, my parents are still super supportive of him doing whatever he wants with his life. Like, oh, you should go be an engineer. You can go to school in whatever state you want. I got screamed at for expecting to go to college and forget going out of state. What a lunatic. I was to expect that of them.

Speaker 1: 8:39

But when your relationships are transactional like as soon as you don't perform people are like oh well, we don't have to do anything for you. You can't, we have to undo that, that whole idea of conditional love, transactional relationships. You can't build social bonds if you look at people as what they bring to the table and I don't know how many ways I can stress that for you, because it's super important and this idea of people just being objects that provide value or lack of value to your life is also why so many South Asians struggle to date, and I'm not going to get into that, that's a whole other episode. But don't go into dating like you're buying a car and then be upset. That person is also dating you like you're a car and not treating you like a person with feelings. It's very simple.

Speaker 1: 9:34

Another way people look at relationships is this whole idea of respecting your elders and that whatever they say goes Um, listen, you can be a respectful person, but you don't have to like ruin your life over it, like here I will say this a million and one times like one day you're going to die and none of it's going to matter. And guess what? One day they're going to die. Not to be morbid, but like what are you going to do? Live your life for your parents or your grandparents? And then when they die, is that when you finally decide to live your life except now you're stuck with building a life around what they wanted, and now you're unhappy, and now you're just stuck and now you're miserable. And then those people tend to make it their mission to make other people miserable. Yeah, we can't do that.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So as much as yes, you have to respect your elders, and I do think like there are people in your life who deserve respect. I also very firmly believe that respect is earned. You don't just like wake up and get it. You have to like do something to earn respect. And if you have parents or grandparents or elders in your life, in any capacity, who completely disrespect you, you don't really owe them that, and I get that's a very individualistic and American way of looking at it, but it will save you like so much sanity to just be like you actually treat me like shit and you don't have to sit there and tolerate it. And, yes, when you stop tolerating it, they will have a meltdown about it.

Speaker 1: 11:11

I went through this in the brown girl guilt episode. So if you want more of that, go there. It's a quite a few episodes back, but yeah, like, why would you go into a situation knowing full well you're going to get treated like shit because you're obligated to like? My husband reminds me of this like all the time. He's like you don't choose the people you're related to. You can choose the people you treat like family, but who you are genetically related to was not your choice and you, quite frankly, don't really owe them anything, and not in a mean way. And that can sound harsh and like. If you've listened to my husband on the show, you know he's a little rough around the edges, but that is true, he's not wrong and I listen.

Speaker 1: 12:02

I maintain a lot of obligations when it comes to family relationships. Like, I don't pretend to be perfect. There are plenty of relationships that I tolerate out of sheer obligation, but creating those boundaries helps, you know, just drawing some lines in the sand, limiting those interactions and just like going into it with a bit of a helmet on. But you don't really owe those people anything. So just remember that you can respect people without letting them trample you, your well being and your mental and physical health.

Speaker 1: 12:33

And here's the thing Most of you listening are fairly young. Life isn't too complicated right now. You go to work, you maybe have a relationship, whatever, like it's not that fussy. But I'm going to tell you right now and some of you probably already know this that like life is hard and life is complicated and shit hits the fan regularly. When you least expect it, someone gets sick, someone ends up in the hospital, somebody dies, and those times are when people really show who they are and you know you don't have to like sit here and then try your best to maintain these relationships. And when shit hits the fan, those same people you broke your back, trying to be nice, to show you that you can't count on them and that they're not going to be there for you, and suddenly there's a complete breakdown of that transactional relationship. And so right now, like yes, we might think that, like your decision to be with someone who's not brown or whatever, is going to be the end, all be all, and this is just the most difficult thing your family has endured. It will not be the hardest thing your family endures. I promise you that and maybe you get through this and you still have a relationship with most of your family.

Speaker 1: 13:52

I would argue the vast majority of us, to some extent, have lost a few people, if not many people, because brown people are annoying and the when, like, life gets more complicated, when shit really hits the fan, when you really need to people to rely on and count on, you will be shocked how often those people are not the ones you are blood related to and trust me when I say that, because it's always true. So, getting to the point of creating a found family and how do you do that and listen, there's no science to this I think it's the biggest hurdle for probably most South Asians is like overcoming the like, guilt or weird feeling of like, oh well, I'm not blood related to them. How can I trust them? Especially if you were raised with like anyone who's not your family, doesn't have your best interest in mind. They don't want what's best for you. We want what's best for you and it's like no, we want what's best for us, but they're never going to say that out loud. Just remember that they don't want what's best for you. They want what's best for them, for you to do what's best for you.

Speaker 1: 15:00

The found family part will probably play a role in everyone's life, like think of the people that in your life, like they are like family, like the people you already know you will be able to count on, no matter what, how many of those people are ones you're related to. Some of them probably are, but a lot of them, or at least some of them, probably aren't the people that you know, like if something were to happen, they would drop everything and be there for you. There's not a lot of those people, and I think a lot of people are scared to even ask themselves that question, because it can be scary. But I think it's important. You ask yourself that question because you don't want to ask it when shit is already hitting the fan, because that's the wrong time to ask that question, because then you don't. It's not an option to ask it. You just see exactly who shows up for you and who's gonna be there for you.

Speaker 1: 15:56

But here's the thing expecting people to be there for you also means like you have to be that person for other people, but also you have to ask for help, and brown girls are just so bad at asking for help. We're so like bear the burden, carry the boulder. We're gonna do it on our own. And listen, I was that bitch for a very long time. I am not above it, I'm still that bitch. But we have to learn to not bear everything on our own. We have to be able to share the good, the bad and the ugly of who we are and the things we have been through, and Sometimes it's not going to be the people you're related to.

Speaker 1: 16:36

And so one way I feel like found family at least has been easy to establish, for me at least has been using my husband's family. Weirdly enough, I so I've lived with my in-laws for a little while now and I Will have. I have to say, at first I was like I don't know how this is gonna work, like I'm just gonna and there are parts of it that are imperfect in terms of like the technicalities of living together and like me moving into my husband's childhood bedroom. But I Will say it has been like weirdly healing to live around people who have like a pretty healthy and stable Household and relationship and have much healthier family dynamics than the ones I came from, which made it a lot easier to unlearn a lot of the like Shit you know, like all the crap you have to unlearn. This was like a crash course in like normal family dynamics like these and I'm not saying his family is perfect at all, but there are so many things that are way better, that are so different that took me so long to just like Mentally catch myself when I was jumping into like toxic brown Mentalities around family and then just like being around normal, healthy relationships. It's so weird. It took a long time.

Speaker 1: 18:03

But, um, leaning into If you are married or in a relationship, leaning into the people who show you who they really are and the people who feel like home and I use this phrase a lot because it's the best description I have for found family, because I'm not just talking about my in-laws and stuff, but like the women my friends in my life have become family and I treat them like family and Even people my husband calls family like oh, we're gonna go to my family's house. Not all of them are blood related to him and yet they are more like family to him than the people he is blood related to. So, like having that example is helpful and I think so many of you listening are in relationships with not brown people, and so it's easy to find those examples. Because I think it's very common in, I guess, american culture, for lack of a better phrase to have a version of found family and the other kind of lens I've used to look at what found family can be is I call it the Godparent lens. So I don't know if everyone here knows what a Godparent is, but it's the idea that if I Were to have children and me and Michael passed away, our children's Godparents would be the person to essentially be there for them, raise them, take them in.

Speaker 1: 19:37

And I know that Idea of a Godparent has changed over the years, but that's where it comes from and I don't know if it's an American thing or a Christian thing. But Anyway, I use that lens because I Know people my husband, his brother have Godparents. I have friends who have Godparents and friends who have become Godparents like heaven asked to be this person in a child's life. And when you pick a Godparent, the idea is like I I know that I can count on this person, if I wasn't here, to take care of my most valuable thing in the world and as my children right, like, who would you trust to Do what's best for your kids if you weren't here, if the worst of the worst were to happen and you weren't here anymore?

Speaker 1: 20:28

Who are the people that you can say, hey, I need you to be here for my kids? Like that's the ultimate example of a found family, because they're usually Godparents, are not people you're a blood related to. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're, like you know, siblings of the parents or whatever, but I always use that as like a filter of like, who are the people in my life that, like, I Can count on, no matter what? And again, it's an uncomfortable question to ask sometimes if you don't feel like you have a lot of those people in your life. But that's like an interesting lens to try to discover who those people may be in your world. And the thing is, you might not already have those people in your life. Like I think South Asian culture does such a good job of making you think your whole life Begins and ends at 25 and then everything after that is just bullshit and it's like, no, like you have life ahead of you, you are gonna meet people, you're gonna grow, you're gonna change, you're gonna build a world for yourself that you wanna live in, and that's gonna take some time.

Speaker 1: 21:41

So if you're not someone who already has those kinds of people in your life like you, can go out and meet those people, whether that's learning to rely on the folks in your life and being open to them, or it's going out and making new friends. I know so many people move for work and stuff and they're kind of starting over. Go out and make some friends and I know that's so much easier said than done, but I think one of the easiest ways to do that is probably to go into places where you're interested in things. Things like book clubs or sports clubs and teams and doing activities is a great way to build social connections. So if there's activities you love to do, go into those spaces. I know just through this podcast the amount of friends I have made, the amount of listeners here and guests who have become friends, that on we chat on Instagram and they have my phone number and we text each other and like I can't tell you how many people send me Christmas cards that I've never met in real life.

Speaker 1: 22:48

I should actually go and hang out with some of these people, like. One of them is Natasha, who is on this show constantly. You guys love her, I love her. She lives in California and, honestly, natasha has been there for me in ways that people in my real life that I see much more regularly have not been and she feels like found family even though she's so far away, and I'm sure we'll hang out one day. But we don't need a reason to text each other. We can just check in and be like, hey, how's it going, how's life? And we have this shared experience, obviously, of our relationships. But we also have very different experiences going through that and if you've listened to this podcast, you know that about her, natasha is Purpose and Chai, by the way, sorry, I should have said that earlier.

Speaker 1: 23:38

So using that God-parent lens, thinking about people who feel like home, is always to gauge who these people are gonna be. And remember relationships are not transactional. You cannot be tit for tat and until you learn that, you will very much struggle to build these kinds of bonds. It's probably the biggest thing I see South Asian struggle with when it comes to relationships, like even my relationship with my husband. It is not 50-50. It is very. I don't know that there was ever a point where it was 50-50, to be quite honest, because over the last eight years things have changed. Who's making more money, who's spending more time at home, who's doing the day-to-day house chores, who's doing life management and finance management, and all of that has changed and it is never 50-50. One person is always doing more of certain things and less of others, and we just it all eventually gets done. But the rigidity of it all is not there because it's gotta be fluid.

Speaker 1: 24:40

And I see so many brown people who, like they're dating someone for like how much money they have and like what status they have in society and like it's so bizarre Cause I'm like what are you gonna do if they lose their job? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna spend the whole time hounding them to immediately get any job? What if they lost their job because they've become sick or they have a mental illness and they're deteriorating and they just need to take a pause? Are you gonna be the person who's like oh well, I married you because you're a doctor and now you're burnt out, so you had to quit your job and now you don't know what to do? Are you gonna hound them about the job because that's why you married them, or are you gonna be there for them and now you have to be the person who holds it together for a while. I can't even tell you how real life will get for some people. And you're just like good luck. Cause this whole way of looking at dating is not it.

Speaker 1: 25:41

And it's the same thing with friendships and stuff. Like you have to be flexible with friendships. Like I don't text my friends every single day, we have a group chat and let me tell you, some days I respond, some days I don't. And we don't just have a group chat. Like those same people I have my own text chats with, or phone calls or FaceTimes or whatever. And sometimes we're around, sometimes we're not. Not all of us live near each other and like that flexibility of like understanding that about humans is really important.

Speaker 1: 26:14

Cause, again, you'll hear a lot of like oh well, I'm always the friend that's there for this person and she never, like you know, does the same for me and listen, that can be a red flag. But you also have to then look in the mirror like are you being understanding? Like is this person going through a lot or are you just keeping tally? It's okay to feel like, hey, you're not being there for me the way I'm being there for you, but if that feeling is coming from a point of you keeping a checklist of every single incident, that's where it gets a little weird. And also, brown people holding multi-generational grudges Can't do that. Another thing that just like isn't gonna work if you wanna build healthy, successful relationships. Also, apologizing, I know brown people don't do that, like I, the only and I don't want this to sound mean but the only friendships I've really lost over the years as I have grown and changed and carried on with my life are with brown people, like the brown girls that I have sporadically been friends with. They're the only relationships that I have completely lost.

Speaker 1: 27:28

And you know, if you've listened to this podcast, you've probably heard me and my friends who have been on that are not South Asian talk about how we like, argue or we fight. It's because we don't talk shit behind each other's back. If I have a problem with someone in my life, I talk to them about it and it might lead to some arguing, it might lead to tears, but ultimately we will talk through it and then we will let it go, which is the most important part. You will apologize and you will let it go and you will leave it there. You will not hold on to it, you will not carry it with you, you will not hold it against this person for the rest of their existence. Because that's what brown people do they don't know how to have a hard conversation, especially when it comes to relationships they're not sure about what happened with, and they love holding a grudge.

Speaker 1: 28:12

And I'm like my longest friendships have been with not brown people, because every now and then I have brown girls that I'm really close friends with and it completely deteriorates at some point, because even the slightest thing being misinterpreted or going wrong leads to this implosion, and then it's just like unforgivable and I'm like I just don't have time for this. Or they just brush it on in the rug and then they start changing the way they treat you and eventually you just completely grow apart and I'm like this is exhausting, like being friends with people should not be exhausting. That's all I'm going to say. But yeah, there's that Also when it comes to treating people like family or loving people and being open and caring to them. Like one other thing.

Speaker 1: 29:04

My husband always says you can't make up emotions that aren't there. So like there are people I am blood related to you that like I just don't really care about and I'm supposed to care about them because I'm related to them but I just don't. And my husband will be like you can't make up emotions that aren't there and he's like you can't make up those emotions because that person has never been there for you the way people are expecting you to be there for them emotionally or physically or whatever. So you don't have to feel guilty about that. Like I don't know how to explain it and I think it'll just resonate with you guys listening on whatever personal level it does resonate with. But remember, you can't make up emotions that aren't there. You can't care about someone if they've never made you feel cared for and sometimes that can be apparent or a sibling or an aunt or an uncle, and that can be uncomfortable. But if you remember that, it can make it a little bit easier because you can be like well, why don't I have this feelings for this person? Because you probably you can't just make them up, you have to.

Speaker 1: 30:12

Again, loving someone, caring about someone, happens because of the way you were treated and made to feel by that person and so, when found family is concerned, like, who are those people, who are the people you can be open with and who you care about so deeply and who means so much to you, are you showing them that? Are they showing you that, like, all of that I personally think is super important and if here's a few lists or things that I consider green flags in human beings that can feel like home and this is literally just compiled from like random Instagram quotes and I don't know where I found them, they're just like screenshot it. I'm sorry, but these are the people who celebrate your wins, that are genuinely happy for your success and happiness. So important when you talk about the things you are passionate about, things you're excited with, things that you've accomplished, that you're proud of yourself for. Pay attention to the people who are clapping and also pay attention to the people who aren't clapping, because that, if they're not clapping red flag, if they're cheering you on with all the hype in the world, massive red flag. Genuinely being able to be happy for someone else's success is a trait that is so undervalued and I'm so grateful I have that in my friends, because it's really unfortunate when someone can't be happy for someone else? Yeah, I don't know, and I've met those people and they're not always brown. There's all kinds of people like that and you immediately notice it when you start taking note of like who's actually happy for you or like who's shutting you down for being excited about something, that major like thing to note.

Speaker 1: 32:14

I did. I literally I was friends with this brown girl and I guess we're still distantly kind of friends, but we like tried to talk about what happened between us and literally the problem her and the entire group that she turned against me. This was in college, not friends with any of those people, but the problem they had with me was I was part of this organization on campus I was really passionate about and apparently it was the only thing I talked about. And that was a problem. And because after I got dumped by my boyfriend and I needed to like just have a fun night out and we went to like. We went out to like frat parties and, like you know, I'm just sitting there flirting with boys drinking jungle juice, living my life, trying to get over a guy who dumped me on my boy on my birthday. That was a problem because I was quote unquote out of control, which I wasn't, by the way. I didn't even make out with anybody fucking relax, anyway.

Speaker 1: 33:09

So basically, the fact that I was excited and passionate about something and wanted to talk to my supposed friends about it with was a problem, and the fact that I got I was going through a breakup and, instead of being there for me and trying to be supportive, they decided to judge me for how I was handling it. And these were brown people not all of them, but a bunch of them. Because how, if I can't process my emotions at home because, first of all, you're brown, shouldn't you understand? I couldn't just like go home and cry to my mom about my boyfriend dumping me, like you. Your reaction to that wasn't to be supportive. So massive red flags about people that I have met in my life. If they are not celebrating you and supporting you, it ain't worth it. Other green flags are remembering small things about you.

Speaker 1: 33:56

Listening is such an underrated skill, guys. Do you know how hard it is for some people to hear you when you talk? And not just hear like the words you're saying, but be able to look beyond that and understand if you're like excited about something, passionate about something, or suffering or struggling, the people who can read that and respond to it appropriately priceless, what else? They respect your boundaries. We love boundaries and the we love the people who can respect that about you. The ones who, when you say, hey, I'm not comfortable doing this or hey, I don't want to do this, gold, and it can be on the most minor thing, like I drink, but I don't really drink and I really don't like being pressured to drink. Like the people who are like, oh, you're so not fun, you're not drinking. Like go fuck yourselves. Not interested in those people. But the friends that I have who are like, completely unfazed by whether I drink or not and have no desire to pressure me to do something I don't want to do, love them. Gold mines Amazing. So boundaries and whatever capacity you have, them being respected by the people around you in a positive way and not judging you for it. Green flags what else? Sorry, guys, I wrote down a lot of stuff and I'm not organized.

Speaker 1: 35:17

You feel energized after seeing them. This is a big one. Like. People are social beings. We thrive on social connection. Babies literally needed to survive. If you are interacting with people who leave you feeling full and light and happy and whole, keep those people in your life and the people you walk away from feeling like shit. Walk away the ones who drain you, the ones who you leave and you are emotionally exhausted and you need to curl up in a ball in your bed and like dissociate those people arms length. Okay, you don't have to cut everybody out of your life, but arms length and solid boundaries very important for those. But the ones who feel you leave you feeling amazing. Keep them close.

Speaker 1: 36:08

What else? They listen without being defensive. This is huge because you cannot maintain friendships over the span of a lifetime and expect them to be perfect all the time. If you talk to someone and can genuinely tell them when you've been made upset by them or something they did made you upset, and they can listen to you without immediately being like oh, I didn't mean it like that, or like just getting super defensive. So important communication in all relationships so important. Like you should be able to have a disagreement with your friend. You should be able to still love and respect them, even though you might have differences, even though maybe they did something that made you really upset or hurt you. You should be able to talk to them about it and have a constructive and conducive conversation so that you can move forward. And I know we can't do that with most of our parents, but we can do that with the people we let into our lives. Okay, we have. They allow you to fully be yourself. So important, these people who can literally like help you grow right, like who is helping water the little garden that is you, that are gonna just celebrate you but also not judge you. And those are the best people, guys. Those are like my favorite people in the world that you can just feel like you can totally be yourself.

Speaker 1: 37:45

I am not a kid who grew up with like a ton of friends. My dance friends were mostly the people I hung out with and then when I got older, I just moved around and, like, just until I got to college I didn't have a solid girl group and even then that girl group has developed and changed a bit and the people in it have come and gone and there's a solid core group that has always been there and they are the people I have always been able to be my weird, nerdy, dorky, selfless, like I don't have to pretend to be anything. I'm not with them If I wanted to show up at friends giving looking like a homeless person I could, and they wouldn't judge me. They'd be like, are you okay, sweetie? Like is everything all right? What's going on? Talk to us. But I would never have to show up as someone. I'm not around them and that is why they are a found family for me.

Speaker 1: 38:38

I hope you can find people like that in your life, because it just makes it so much better to not have to be something you're not. What else? They make you feel safe. This is also major keys. You should feel safe around the people you want to call home or call family. They should make you feel like you're not going to get hurt here, whether that is physically, emotionally, mentally, safe in all realms. You should have a place where you can say how you feel, be yourself, tell them when you're struggling and know that you will be met with only compassion. And that can seem like a really foreign concept if the only relationships you know are some of the very broken ones created in South Asian households especially.

Speaker 1: 39:37

Like everything I am describing looking for in found family. I basically didn't receive in my house and I know that's not all true for all brown people and maybe that makes me a cynic but I didn't receive that and to have found it somewhere else and to be able to see it and I'm still not great at even like letting it all in because I'm, like super, you know, closed off, but just knowing that it's there means like so much to me. What else? I'm sorry I have a stuffy nose. I always have a stuffy nose.

Speaker 1: 40:15

You don't have to watch what you say. This is great because I host a podcast and people think I'm supposed to watch what I say and then I have to remind them that their lack of emotional regulation is not my problem. That same saying goes for the people in your life. Like I understand this podcast isn't perfect and I say lots of things that probably make a lot of people butt hurt, but this is my podcast. I'm gonna do what I want. However, the rest of y'all do not have a podcast most likely, and you should be able to say what you want around the people who are your family. You should not be worried about getting snapped at about saying the wrong thing or offending people like you should be able to be honest and, as someone who is horrific at sugarcoating literally anything, I value that quite a bit in the people in my life because sometimes I say things and they definitely sound like not how I meant them, but I just had to let them out and that I can just vent and be angry or be excited and super hyped about something and feel like I'm in a safe place.

Speaker 1: 41:27

Those people, all of these things green flags, guys and they support your goals, which I guess is the same as the first one, where they celebrate your wins, but actually somewhat different Like people who don't hear the things you are striving for in life, whatever those are, whether those goals are I want to be the fucking CEO and I want to be a boss bitch, or I want to be a mom who has five kids, who raises amazing human beings, like, whatever your goals are, you want to run a marathon, you want to do an iron man, you want to build a year in your backyard? I don't know. Whatever you want to do, the people who can support your goals are so priceless and they can be supportive and just like checking in on you and asking how it's going because they know you're passionate about it, or people who will like literally go out of their way to like connect you with the right people that will be there to help you achieve these goals or provide you with those resources or just cheer you on like genuinely just be a cheerleader. That's like amazing. I mean, it is incomprehensible sometimes when I look at the home I came from and the complete lack of these things. And not just that, but, like you know, the brown friends I'm not friends with, who, like, were basically the opposite of everything I just said they had some of the green flags but they didn't have most of them and they were probably a walking pile of red flags. And it's unfortunate because, like we don't create people like this by accident, like our culture does this to, like have people who just look at human beings as objects to be used and not supported and nurtured.

Speaker 1: 43:18

And I don't know, I'm sure this episode will ruffle people's feathers, because every episode does that. But these are just my thoughts and opinions. Hopefully it all made sense. I tried not to ramble, but yeah, I do that a lot around here. Anyway, I hope you find the people who feel like home. I hope you nurture those relationships, I hope you can be that person for them because, remember, relationships are to a street, and I also hope you open yourself up to allow for those relationships. I think so many of us leave these toxic situations and then it takes so much for us to like open ourselves up to, like receiving positive, nurturing relationships in our lives because, like some of us, are just so wounded. Okay, and we're all a work in progress and we can give ourselves grace that we are working through it. And if you are surrounded by those people, the found family, who can let you be exactly who you are, those people will never judge you for being a work in progress. They will always, always be there for you. So I hope you find those people. They are out there. You just have to find them, pull them in, hold them tight and never let go right.

Speaker 1: 44:47

Thanks so much for tuning in, guys. I'll see you guys next time. Thanks so much for tuning in, guys. Make sure if you enjoyed this episode, you leave us a review on iTunes. You can find the show on all major streaming platforms. You can find me on Instagram at Disha Mazeppa. You can shop my Etsy shop Disha Mazeppa designs. Find out everything you want to know about this show at Disha Mazeppacom and if you or someone you know would like to be a guest, you can email BWPS podcast at gmailcom and I'll see you guys next time. Bye. This podcast is hosted and produced by Disha Mazeppa. Music for the show was created by Crackswell.