Sami Kinnison (00:28)
Welcome everyone to this week’s episode of the podcast. I’m one of your hosts, Sami joined by a fellow co-host and my mom, Angela. And today we are gonna be unpacking some different thoughts that we’ve been having. This is kind of just like a check-in update episode. Angela and I both happen to be reading books that have led us to similar trails of thought and

Really and truthfully, we’ve not actually had a chance to unpack a lot of this with each other. And we started to kind of give our little bit of a debrief to each other, telling us what we’re thinking about these days. And we go, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is podcast content. So here we are. Welcome to our debrief and the things that we’re thinking about. Angela, yesterday was kind of a big day for you as far as having a lot of these conversations. Talk us through

Angela Belford (01:15)
Yeah.

Sami Kinnison (01:16)
some of that.

You can pretend you’re just talking to me. You don’t have to pretend you’re talking to the third person here at the table, the listener, but they’re joining us here.

Angela Belford (01:23)
Well, there are a couple of our listeners that are super sweet and talk to me about the podcast a lot. So I am often thinking about them. But I yesterday we had our first League of Women Voters member meeting since I became president of the League of Women Voters of Arkansas. August first was the first day I was voted in like in mid-July. So it’s been certainly I’ve been ramping up over the last few weeks, but

This was my first time to address the members and and so I started with like here’s what I want my presidency to be about. And I had really worked hard a couple of weeks ago on like if somebody asks me to speak about it, I want I want to know. And and so what I want my presidency to be about is first of all, j we’re gonna use joy as an act of rebellion. Like the you can this work that we do with the league where we’re fighting for

democracy and defending democracy and empowering voters, it can be super hard and and we can use anger and frustration to fuel, or we can use joy. And it’s very cool and interesting that my book talks about the invisible edge and the fuel that we use. And so I was able to share that, but I I didn’t have to call back my book. I said, you know, I’d do some of this work. But anyway, so joy is an act of rebellion. I’m really inspired by the civil rights movement.

The second thing, sorry, I heard a story yesterday that was like, can you imagine being a part of the civil rights movement and they are sicking dogs on you and they’re using fire hose and you are singing swing low, sweet chariot, and you are praising Jesus? Like, can you even comprehend how damning that is to the person that is attacking you? Right? Especially

Sami Kinnison (03:06)
It’s very.

Angela Belford (03:07)
because they’re attacking you often with this this idea of some some warped faith-based perspective.

And so the second thing I want my presidency to be about is radical nonpartisan. So the the League, if you’ve been a longtime listener, you know they’ve done a couple episodes about the League. And the League of Women Voters is nonpartisan, but we’re also an activist group. And so must steal from Sharon McMahon and say that nonpartisan does not mean that we tolerate wrong. It does not mean that we don’t call out.

things that are happening. so I was like, we are gonna have a voice for people who can’t speak for themselves. We are going to lift up voices. We are absolutely gonna fight hard against democracy, but we’re gonna do it with a radical nonpartisan partisanship so that we cannot be faulted at all. And then finally, I said we are going to be known as a place to belong. There’s a place for everybody. Our tent is very large and I said the

There’s a loneliness epidemic in this world right now. And so the league has to be a place where it is safe for people to come and unpack things and safe to to make mistakes. And I shared Bonnie Miller, who’s been on the podcast, and my former the former president and has done so much work for so long. And she I had fallen off the planet for four months one time. I’d been on a committee and then just dropped out.

And then I kind of sheepishly came back and I told this story last night. Sheepishly came back and was like, Hey, I’m sorry. And she goes, No problem. Get in here. We need you. And that took me back to when I was in California with Bob Goff. And and he said, We were, you know, we were around a fire pit and he said, Angela, get in here. We need you. And I’m like, that’s how I believe my faith should be. That’s how our faith should be. And so I want that to also imbibe.

the League of Women Voters. And so I it’s about community, right? And and it’s about belonging. It’s about making sure people feel welcome. And then I go to my small group, my church small group, which I love, which is just we go to cool restaurants and eat and hang out and chat. And I end up talking about homeless work. And I’m like, you know, my you guys said, have you seen my TED talk? And my friend goes, No, I didn’t know you had a TED Talk. And I was Yeah, and it’s community is the solution to homelessness. And I mean like

Literally sat back in my seat and I went, my gosh, hold on. Why have I never put together that my whole philosophy dates all the way back to then? Like my solution for homelessness is community. And you can’t spell community without unity. And I’m like, my gosh, I’ve been talking about belonging and community for a long time. Holy cow. And then I shared also that I’ve had a meeting yesterday with with our pastor and was talking about just the

the intensity of the work that I’m doing with the League of Women Voters, I’m gonna be walking in a homeless walk in a fundraiser to end chronic homelessness in October. And so just there’s just a lot going with all of that. And and we talked about that as a bridge builder, you have to be able to walk amongst the people who are hurting, and you have to walk amongst the people who are hurting others. And and you have to not be not absorb anger.

But you have to you have to have grace and you have to speak truth to power and you have to do it in a way that is people t can hear it and he shared that if you study Jesus and I don’t care what your faith perspective is, he’s a fantastic example of a human. But he walked amongst the elite, he walked amongst the the aristocrats, the the wealthy and the rich, and the people in power and he also walked among

the hurting of society and he he he just had a fluid and a flexibility and so I feel like that’s when you talk about radical nonpartisanship, you talk about this community idea and and when I walk into spaces that think not so highly of the League of Women Voters, I go, hey, at the end of the day, I wanna I think that we all we all love our community. We disagree on the how to love our community well.

And so and people are like, Yeah, I I guess yeah, I can I can agree with that. I’m like at the most individual people. Now there are people that are architecting systems of racism and systems that that I do not have that same thought about, right? But but the people that you we walk amongst, we are not each other’s enemies. We

Sami Kinnison (07:48)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Belford (07:48)
are people that have bought into a higher value and often often we have bought in for the point of

Sami Kinnison (07:57)
Belonging.

I love this. So I’m gonna add my layers and then we’ll we’ll keep fleshing out. I am currently in the middle of reading the book How Minds Change, and I have been really interested in this concept of persuasion and like what does it actually take to persuade somebody? And so I had decided this year I wanted to do a bit of a deep dive on that. I had a conversation with somebody who

Her and I share similar political views, but different approaches. And her approach, and she was like, I just think that we have given too much space to people who have, quote, the wrong political view, and people need to be like called out and shamed and othered and isolated as a punishment for their wrong views until they get their act together and willing to jump on board. And I was just like, I don’t.

I just disagree. I don’t think that making people feel othered for their opinions and beliefs and values will change their mind, which is what sparked this. Like, I want to be able to to prove that and to like get some some sources behind what feels right to me, feels obvious. But

But

is not obvious to everybody. And so anyway, so that’s how I started seeking out these sources. And in reading the book, How Minds Change, number one, it just is like it’s a very intellectual take on things. It is, let’s talk about how do we know that we know something and like the study, let’s break it really down and get deep into the science and the granular part of it and the nerdy part of me, absolutely here for it.

I will say I did try like reading the paper book first, and I was slow and it was difficult. I have switched over to listening to the audio and I’m cruising through this book. And so I check out whatever format works for you. Think about those kinds of things. When it comes to one of the big reasons that people’s mind changes or that people like lock in on a particular point of view, is because that point of view.

comes with the access to a community and access to belonging. And so when people are more likely to fall into like conspiracy theory groups or people who that has a whole chapter about people who deny that 9-11 happened. yep, and and even there’s some of them that are like, sure it happened. It was a hundred percent orchestrated. Like every single person involved was an actor.

And every single, like, I mean, it’s intense the conspiracy on it. And he interviews somebody who left that group. they call themselves the truthers and left the truthers. And like, what happened? How did you leave? How did you end up coming to see that this this other point of view? And there’s a big part of it that

It came down to that he fell into that group because he found belonging. And then when he was able to break out is when he actually started finding belonging in another group and he had the security of belonging to another group as well that led him to be able to question and and to cause and to say, Well, let me look at this more critically. Because he said if he did not have the safety net.

If the options were continue to believe this or go into isolation, like your brain will make crazy jumps on your behalf because being with other people, being in community is so much safer to your brain than being isolated. And so it was fascinating to me that I was like, look, see the evidence that like if you want people to feel othered for their point of view, you’re just gonna push them farther into their point of view. And

I

feel like there have been times in my life where I get criticized for fraternizing with the enemy, for for holding friendships that I shouldn’t hold. And the also Sharon McMahon’s book that is The Small and the Mighty, one of the stories she talks about is Septima McClark, who, yep, small and mighty on your shelf there.

Angela Belford (12:31)
Mm.

Sami Kinnison (12:32)
And I have a poster just out of view that is the cover of it.

Septima Clark said, I will work closely with my enemies because you never know the day that they will suddenly change from my enemy to my friend. I messed up the quote a little bit and put it in the show notes. But the concept of if I just cut everybody off, if they change their mind, they have nobody around them to hold their hand, to be with them. And so you

You need to work closely with people who are them, the other side, because you somebody’s got to be their opportunity to see something different or to give them safety to change their mind. That’s the other big piece of this that I haven’t gotten to in the book, but have felt you and I have talked about this so many times that you have to make it safe for somebody to change their point of view. And

Angela Belford (13:30)
Right. You can’t

be sitting there going, I told you so. I’ve been telling you this for years and you just finally came around. Who nobody’s enjoying that. Conversation.

Sami Kinnison (13:36)
Nobody is joining that.

Angela Belford (13:38)
No.

Sami Kinnison (13:39)
This, and here’s my thing. If you it comes back to like, what is your goal? And what are you trying to accomplish? When people come to me for coaching on communication, and like one of the first conversations that I will have and make them do is like, what are you trying to accomplish? When you need to have a hard conversation with somebody, what is your ideal outcome? You’ve got to know what that is. If your ideal outcome is them to change their mind.

What is what you’re doing going to get you there? Is yelling at somebody because they have the wrong opinion, the wrong view on something going to change their mind? It’s not. Like it’s actually it’s not going to be the thing. Therefore, you will not be able to accomplish your goal through these methods. Will you feel better about yourself? Sure, for a little bit. Will you feel more ingrained into your group, into your belonging to say, like, look what I did? Here’s a feather in my cap, I yelled at somebody else.

Who has his point of view? I got into the arguments in the Facebook section. Whatever it was, like notice, am I doing this? Not I’m not actually gonna accomplish changing their mind. And anyway, it was very interesting to me that even in a book about persuasion, the point of it is belonging. Like

Angela Belford (14:53)
It is

Sami Kinnison (14:54)
I didn’t it I didn’t expect that to come from this book.

Angela Belford (14:57)
So I’m reading a book called A Time to Gather, and it turns out that it is about ritual. And at first what my friend is like, You have to read this book, you have to read this book.

I don’t know. Like he’s like, I am going to change my whole philosophy. And I was like, wow, this is somebody who I have had deep, deep respect for a long time. So when he says this is changing how I think about it, I I like I want it interest I’m interested. So basically the concept is that that ritual was created before religion, in fact.

there’s early indications

of of you know fire dances and celebrations and you know harvest festivals and all of those things but then religion kind of took over and was the primary keeper of rituals. So you think Catholic Church, marriage, baptism, all of the sacraments are about coming together.

Sami Kinnison (15:50)
The

the Jewish faith and tradition for the whole Old Testament’s but even it was like there’s festivals and there’s yeah, you’ve all of the different events that are there’s so many events. It’s hard to keep up.

Angela Belford (15:54)
Yeah, bar mitzvah, yes. It’s the festival. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. There’s so many

festivals. Yes, there are so many festivals. That is it is actually creating community. Like if you think about like how many different community events we go to. When we go to a wedding, or we go to a funeral, or we go to a baptism, or we go to whatever, it is about community. Well, then as religion

over the last couple of decades has is losing its role in society, which is not what we’re debating today. it is it is it created this vacuum for for years where there was like a a dearth of of these celebrations. If you were not part of a church, then you kind of it created loneliness, which it’s interesting because I had always thought, yeah, well

what makes people say religion is the pansy of the of the multitudes, whatever, but I had thought about it as as the loss of faith and I’m not gonna argue that either, ’cause there is, but

What he has has said is now we see an increase in more micro celebration and and ritual in the way of like gender reveals parties are super common, big engagement parties are super common, you even have like a lots of non-traditional blessing ceremonies or different different things that are he lists a lot of them.

When you adopt a child, it’s a little different and like just the different types of celebrations that people are now having. and it all comes down to community and belonging. What’s funny is that I can’t figure out if it’s just because this is the headphones and the glasses that I have on right now. If I’m

Sami Kinnison (17:46)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Belford (17:46)
seeing it and hearing it everywhere, or so I can’t wait to talk to my friend next week and be like, Okay, did you get this out of this idea?

We’ve even talked about the idea of people experiencing homelessness. Part of what is hard about moving into when you get qualified for housing is you lose community. And that is one of the number one ways people will lose their housing is because their community, they’re people that helped take care of them for for sometimes years.

Sami Kinnison (18:12)
However long.

Angela Belford (18:14)
Like that’s how you survive, then they like they feel bad that their friends are still left out in the woods and so they’ll let people stay with them.

Out of so much no zero malice out of a hundred percent of like this is my community. And so anyway.

Sami Kinnison (18:32)
I think that it is interesting. I want to read your book now about ritual as well. putting it on my TBR, A Time to Gather,

Angela Belford (18:42)
A time to gather

Sami Kinnison (18:45)
because there are different things about how can we intentionally create gatherings and community and opportunity. I think about when we’ve talked about our friendship episodes and

what does it look like to be a friend in 2026 and to have adult friendships? This idea at times that people don’t like having to be the inviter or the initiator. And somebody’s like, I always initiate the like gatherings with with people and it gets really frustrating after a while. I think that there’s there’s one, there is like the real burnout of if you’re always the one in charge of planning everything that does get really hard.

On the other side, what a gift to give to other people to ensure that there are gatherings and to to be a person who says, I don’t mind being the initiator. I don’t mind being the person who says, Hey guys, we haven’t gotten together in a while. Let’s do it. What are we doing? And I think about like you the barrier to entry.

Is much lower than people probably think it is. It does not take that much to invite people over to say, hey, let’s grill some hot dogs and hang out. Like I don’t have to have fancy food, I don’t have to have the house clean. I don’t have to do these things. Invite somebody over and and start building community. I the the lazy genius way, which is a book, this is just gonna be like our book recommendation episode, apparently.

Kendra Adachi, who wrote that one of the things that she recommends is having like end of season closing ceremonies. So her family got really into the Olympics when they were younger, and they would have opening ceremonies and closing ceremonies for every season. And so when you start summer, this is what you do. And then when you end summer, this is what we do. When which is funny,

Angela Belford (20:45)
Mm.

Sami Kinnison (20:46)
is that so like so ending summer is not actually the same as starting fall for them. you end summer and then

You start school for a couple of weeks and then they go to fall and they have a fall opening ceremony. And this is what we do to start fall. This is our our family always goes to this particular pumpkin patch and corn maze, and that is the beginning of fall for us. And sometimes we invite friends and sometimes our kids invite their friends. We do a thing, but it is important. She was like, These things matter to me. And so I am looking at the calendar in advance to say when are we

Starting fall, this is the date. When are we like there’s a her church does a Christmas choir? This is the start of the Christmas season, things like

Angela Belford (21:26)
Right.

Sami Kinnison (21:27)
that. Having opening and closing ceremonies for stuff, she recommends it as a way to help mark the moments. And even if you’re just doing it with your own nuclear family or if you’re doing it with others, the I think even doing it with your own nuclear family is still really important. That you’re building community and relationships there.

And I love the idea of inviting other people into it. And so we often have several fall traditions that for me, like these are the things that we do for fall. we have a corn maze that we go to every year. If and I actually am now at a stage of my life where I’d like to go twice, once with the children, once without the children, so that I can have

Angela Belford (22:06)
Ha ha

Sami Kinnison (22:06)
an opportunity to have like the full corn maze

Angela Belford (22:09)
Enjoy that.

Sami Kinnison (22:10)
and and I don’t have to worry about my kids keeping up with me in the maze, like, no, no, we’re going.

Little too competitive or you did it with the kids, but that’s a different problem for different time. Things like that. I think that right now this is coming out kind of in the middle beginning of fall. But whenever you listen to it, think about are there ways that you can initiate belonging? And can you be a person who carries a torch for belonging and not as a burden, but as a gift? It really this is a point where I would say like mindset does matter. I know we have

some complicated feelings about mindset work at times where it’s mostly that it’s not whole. Like if you’re only doing mindset things, it’s not the whole story. This

Angela Belford (22:50)
It’s right. Right.

Sami Kinnison (22:55)
is one that if you have a bunch of negative feelings about being the initiator, you like what if that’s not a bad thing? What if you get to carry that torch and that’s a beautiful thing? People who get to carry the Olympic torch, like that’s an honor to carry the torch forward. So anyway.

Angela Belford (23:12)
I do I do understand. I don’t want to discount. I have a couple of thoughts. Number one is that while we in our privilege can be maintained for and this is gonna go all the way back to what we’re talking about at the beginning, we are able to walk amongst people that are that are the that hurt other people with their the way with their words or the way their thing. If

If you are one of the people that is getting hurt by the things that Uncle Ernie says at Thanksgiving, we are not saying don’t protect yourself. Like keep yourself safe. What what

Sami Kinnison (23:50)
Absolutely agree.

Angela Belford (23:51)
we’re saying is that if we’re not directly the ones being hurt, then we do then we feel like we can stay in that space so that we can stand in and and represent the the people who are who it would be

traumatic for them to sit and listen to

Sami Kinnison (24:10)
Can I be so

bold to say that you and I have the perspective that it is our responsibility to stand in that space and

Angela Belford (24:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sami Kinnison (24:18)
and to stay at the table with Uncle Ernie and whatever he’s saying, to be somebody who says, Hey, that’s like I’m not gonna laugh at the jokes. Like I’m I’m gonna that that is the other thing. Like, I’m gonna be in the room, but I don’t have to laugh at the jokes and and do all the things and go right along with it. But I would say it’s a responsibility that I feel.

Angela Belford (24:35)
I have a

step my when my stepmother was stepmother-in-law, come on, double whame it y’all. Stepmother-in-law,

Sami Kinnison (24:41)
Yeah.

Angela Belford (24:42)
when she was alive, she said something one day and I said, her name is Honey. Honey, we don’t we don’t say that anymore. And the person who had been hurt by the thing couldn’t stand up for that. And another person at the table didn’t know how, because they had their own. This is my stepmom, sweet Barry.

but I said, no, no, no, we don’t say that anymore. She goes, We don’t? Well, what do we do now? I said, We let people be who they are, just like we let you be who you are. She goes, okay. Now I’m not saying it’s always that easy, and I’m not saying when I’m not there, she’s not gonna say it again. But she didn’t say it the whole rest of my trip that whole time. And anytime she said anything, I go, sweet girl, we don’t do that. Remember? No, no, no, we we are kind. And that worked for

Sami Kinnison (25:27)
This is

Angela Belford (25:28)
her.

Now that you have different experience with your father-in-law, that being respectful and kind to him over these years, now you’ve got these great relationships. Y’all can hear about those stories, but but we

Sami Kinnison (25:38)
Yeah.

Angela Belford (25:38)
do have to wade in. And and we don’t always have to be angry and hateful about it. We can use

Sami Kinnison (25:46)
Ding ding ding ding ding.

Angela Belford (25:47)
kindness and joy. I have certainly said to people, what are you trying to accomplish? Do you think that’s funny? It’s not funny.

Sami Kinnison (25:56)
Yes, the

I will say a privilege that I use and wield strategically and purposefully is the dumb blonde. I don’t get it. Why is that funny? Tell me, tell me why you think that’s funny, because I know why you think it’s funny, but like I I don’t know. I have I have used that line before.

And having somebody try to explain their their racist, their sexist, their whateverist joke, to explain why it’s funny makes people pretty uncomfortable. now I’m sure that there are other ways and there’s there’s a tension. this is probably one of those, like it’s new, it’s a this is a nuanced conversation. Know our hearts. We are not here trying to say that like, just let everybody do whatever they’re gonna do. I

Angela Belford (26:46)
Mm mm, mm mm.

Sami Kinnison (26:47)
also don’t think that yelling at somebody and and

Making them feel like shamed and othered and isolated. I don’t think that’s going to lead to the outcome that we need. Correcting with love.

Angela Belford (26:58)
I think about it like

this. I think about it like this. Like think about young people who like when they their grandparents say something that is like out of vogue or whatever, or the young person says something that the old person doesn’t know what it means, like in the same like teaching kind of way, like, no, that hey, that means something different these days, grandpa. You know what I mean? Like they would say that if you said, you know, I don’t know, some out of date word. that now means

And you’re like, I don’t know about y’all, but I constantly am like going, How do you keep up with what all these different things mean now? Right? So anyway, but if you can have that attitude as like you’re explaining tech, like and just remove

Sami Kinnison (27:39)
Yeah.

Angela Belford (27:40)
a little bit of the emotion, that might be a helpful approach. The second thing is that I went through a season where I was the only one that reached out. Like my sweet family, bless them. Bless them. None of them got 18 years with me. They were

Deprived of the joy of living with me for 18 years.

Sami Kinnison (27:55)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Belford (27:56)
Those poor things. The most anybody ever got was five years a blessing.

Sami Kinnison (28:00)
What a good perspective shift.

It’s like you’re in marketing and can put a spin on it.

Angela Belford (28:05)
But that means they forget me. so that

Sami Kinnison (28:07)
Mm.

Angela Belford (28:07)
means I’m also the keeper of the history. So I have more history about our family than anybody else because I lived with all with all I think I lived with all the sib all of the my grandma’s children’s.

Sami Kinnison (28:16)
You know all the secrets.

Angela Belford (28:19)
I do know where all the bodies are buried. I do know all the secrets. That is pretty funny. but so I went through a season where I was just like, I’m not gonna call anybody. They’re gonna call me.

And unfortunately it was years sometimes between calls for my family. And I and then I was just like, you know what? It hurts my feelings that my aunt doesn’t wish me a happy birthday. So you know what I did? I called my aunt and she goes, Hi, what’s going on? I go, I thought you would want to wish me a happy birthday today. She goes, my gosh, I do want to wish you a happy birthday today. I said, I knew you would hate that, that you missed it. So I wanted to call you.

And was it the first year I did it? Was it funny? The second year it was funny. Whatever. I needed to talk to them. And then they started remembering. They put it in their phone and they started remembering.

I started at least getting a text message and and I I had needs and I had to get them met. I also formed relationships with people that were maternal. I have a lot of extra moms because I needed that. So I get it. If you’re

Sami Kinnison (29:25)
Had

Angela Belford (29:25)
the one that’s tired of inviting people, I get that. and also at some point you have you may have to figure out, yeah, you can either be tired.

Or you can get your needs met. And at different times I’ve gone and just made different friends.

Sami Kinnison (29:41)
I will say I had a friend for a period of my life that she stopped texting me and then like months later basically was like, How dare you? You haven’t texted me in all of these months. And I was like, You’re right, I keep thinking about you, so sorry. Life got busy, and she was like, Okay, great, well, it’s on you now to like reach out. And I’m like,

I struggled a lot because in the particular her saying, like, no, Sami, I need you to be the one to reach out to me. This is what I need for the friendship right now. Sounds good and well. At that point in time in her life, she was single, not married, unlike working a full-time job.

I had two small children at home. I had a toddler and another baby who was like

Angela Belford (30:28)
And working full time.

Sami Kinnison (30:29)
six months old, maybe a little bit older. I had had a pregnancy that I like had nearly killed me. Like I almost went to the hospital. Like, okay, friend, I’m really so I had a miscarriage

Angela Belford (30:38)
You miscarried, and then you had a

Sami Kinnison (30:41)
and then I had a pregnancy that almost put me in the hospital and like all and I had COVID pneumonia. And I was like, sure, you’re right. I’m the horrible person because I have been trying to.

literally survive. Like, not just like, I’m surviving, but like, no, no, no, no, no. I’ve been fighting for my life over here. But you’re right. I’m the bad friend because I haven’t reached out to you. And I got I just got so frustrated to be like, I i if you I am the one who initiates a lot. I am the person who very regularly is initiating things. And if I went through a season of my life where Sami’s not initiating things,

Can that not be a cue to my friends to say, like,

Angela Belford (31:20)
You might check in

Sami Kinnison (31:23)
maybe something is going on with Sami Anyway, and so it just was a really hard time with this friendship to be like, I need you to show up for me. And I’m like, okay, I literally don’t have enough to give for my family, for myself, for my job. I don’t think I have enough for you. And I kind of told her that. And she got really upset and really hurt that was like, I can’t believe you don’t have enough to give me. And I was like, I genuinely don’t have enough to give myself right now. And so

If you, if what I have to offer is not enough, then I don’t know that this friendship is right for right now. And it just was I felt sad, but I also felt like I don’t know what else you I can do. I cannot fabricate more energy to to text you, to like have text message conversations that are just like, hey, what’s up? Not much. What’s up with you? Like, no.

my gosh, it drives me nuts. I am not a Gen Zier. I can’t do those kinds of conversations.

Angela Belford (32:17)
I I remember when

I remember when Josh was texting we were going on our way to Kansas City for a soccer game and he’s in sixth grade and and he’s texting the whole three hours and I get we get up to Kansas City and I walk up to one of the girls’ soccer games and they were like, your Josh Belford’s mom because he was t my daughter, you know, had texting in in our town, so then they were texting with

Sh he was texting my daughter on my phone and I go, Yeah, did you read the text messages? It would be like, because finally I’m like, I gotta see these. What are you texting? Be like, what’s your favorite drink? Dr. Pepp the girl would ask, and Josh would be like, Dr. Pepper, what’s yours? I’m like, Woo, you are a conversationalist kid. Like that’s that kind of like, what’s your favorite movie? And like, this one’s fine. What’s yours? I’m like, wow, this is deep stuff we got going on over here. And I’m like.

I don’t know if that’s actually I d i I cannot I not cannot complain because he is still friends with a lot of those people. and he does maintain friendships with ’cause what was important to them was important to him, I guess. But for the your friend, it’s like y it’s not like you reached out and said, Hey, by the way, I just got a cancer diagnosis. Like or hey, what’s up with you?

Sami Kinnison (33:39)
Yeah, anyway. I feel like I probably need to do a little bit of healing within that.

Angela Belford (33:44)
number one, I like how you’re talking about that because people need to hear that you can set boundaries and it and it can you can just be like, Well then this friendship may just not be right for me in this season of life. Here’s what I’ll tell you, life’s long and there’s people that I’ve reconnected with and there’s people that I didn’t. I ran into some people yesterday that I hadn’t seen in fifteen years and it was like pick up where we left off and that’s okay.

you know, that we the spa shared spaces when we’re raising kids has changed. So I would say here’s the here’s the reason why we got all this started, because we’re talking about books, is that my fourth book for a long time I thought was gonna be about abandonment. What I figured out is I was writing book three and it was turning it into a fiction book. I figured out last fall that all of the characters were going to have

An abandonment wound. And then I was like, wait, you know what? Abandonment wounds cause an abandonment, just so we all are clear. it can be like parent dying, it can be a divorce, it can be your older sibling going off to college. You can feel abandoned in that way. You could be your parents move across the country for a job and you lose all your friends. That can feel like abandonment. So I feel like it abandonment is more universal. However

Here’s what happens is that when we don’t resolve those abandonment wounds, we are less likely to get into relationships, which is more likely to create the feeling, I don’t belong. I don’t belong. And so and then when I get through the whole thing, I’m like, wow, this is just about abandonment. I’m like, I don’t know if I’m an expert on abandonment. I mean, I’ve had a lot, but then I realized it goes all the way back to the good life and relationships because when we

don’t resolve those, then we have a harder time trusting people. We get to the point where we’re like, what’s the point? Everybody’s gonna leave. I hate to break it to you, but that is actually true. Like it’s actually true. Everyone is going to leave. Everyone is actually

Sami Kinnison (35:46)
Yeah.

Angela Belford (35:46)
going to die. And so we gotta learn how to surf that wave.

Sami Kinnison (35:51)
Yeah, my four year old, yesterday, he asked the question. He said, Mom, Dad, what happens if you guys die? Like, where do we go? And I was like, Well, you know, that’s a hard question. Yeah, you guys would go with your your Lala and your G. And he’s like, But what happens if Lala and G die? And I was like, Okay, well, you might go with Nina and Pop. Well, what if Nina and Pop you and Dad and Lala and G and Nina and Pop, what if they’re all dead? I’m like, Okay, well then you got, you know.

Uncle Josh and Aunt Abby and Aunt Lexi and well, what if they all died? I’m like, okay, buddy, at a certain point.

Angela Belford (36:22)
my gosh.

Sami Kinnison (36:23)
And so then like, if every single I got yes, if every single fam adult family member and adult friend member in your life died, you have bigger problems than where are you going? So and he was like, You’re right, and walked off. I was just like, Dude, at a certain point, if you’ve lost literally 30 adults around you, I got nothing. I got nothing for that what if scenario for

Angela Belford (36:45)
Yeah.

Sami Kinnison (36:45)
you.

So unlikely. But it’s like, yeah, everybody will die in the end.

Angela Belford (36:51)
Yeah.

Sami Kinnison (36:51)
Sorry. And he’s just like, okay. Noted.

Angela Belford (36:55)
He’s just trying to figure out how the world works. That

Sami Kinnison (36:58)
He really is.

Angela Belford (36:59)
is all the thing. As because what I heard from that is, wow, you have a long list.

Sami Kinnison (37:04)
I do have a long list.

Angela Belford (37:05)
He has a long list before he he goes off into a foster care situation, you know? And so what a blessing. Not something that everybody has.

Sami Kinnison (37:13)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It is

no and but but also if all thirty adults in his life died like sheesh it was a real bad moment. It’s probably worse problems.

Angela Belford (37:26)
Probably the apocalypse. Yeah. You prob you

probably won’t be here either, kid.

Sami Kinnison (37:32)
So I was how do you say that to a four-year-old? I don’t know what to tell you. So it did. All that to say, we’re all

Angela Belford (37:37)
Woo, this took a dark turn.

Sami Kinnison (37:41)
just looking for where we belong. And what if you wanted to like give somebody encouragement on this as they think about maybe their own space and how they feel about belonging? And feel like what do you have encouragement that you could share where somebody could start reflecting in this area?

Angela Belford (37:59)
Yeah, here’s the exercise when I’m working with my clients on I belong or I don’t belong, I say, when you’ve hosted a party, are you wondering if you belong in that room? Typically not. Typically you’re wanting to other people to feel welcome. Like if you have a an after already hours at your party, you have a birthday party, you want you want everybody to feel welcome. Right? You have host energy, is what I call it. However, if you are

show up at something and maybe you have a friend that’s like hey I’m going to this thing you want to go and I you don’t even know what the thing is and you’re walking in going I don’t even know if I should be at this thing. I don’t even know who’s gonna be there or what’s gonna happen. You walk in with guest energy like guessing if you and feeling like a guest. And what I say is you are the same human in both of those scenarios. You could literally be hosting a lunch and learn

then in the evening be going. So it is not the circumstances that you were in. It is literally you get to decide. Are you going to show up with guest energy? Are you going to show up with host energy? And so I say, I just decide. Like when I’m going to a business after hours, I decide to show up with hip host energy. If I see somebody by themselves, I go and I welcome them. I this was what made me famous at church for a while is that anybody that came in by themselves, I was like I was the you know guest extraordinaire

And so I just would say that it’s a decision. It literally is. It may not feel like a decision. And if it doesn’t feel like a decision, it’s a great opportunity to get coaching with us because we can help you work through those I don’t belong issues. That’s what I was looking for.

Sami Kinnison (39:43)
I

love it. I think that’s really great. Thank you all for listening. If you have other books you want to recommend us to read and unpack, things related or unrelated, shoot us a text message, send us a message, let us know. We are, I’m always looking for new good books to read. So happy to to hear your guys’ recommendations and maybe we’ll start more regularly sharing what are the books that we’re reading and recommending to you all.

Thank you all for being here. We’re so grateful for each and every one of you being on your journey. And until next time, we hope you guys go be freaking awesome.