Good Friends Help Friends Set Boundaries
TL;DR — get yourself this kind of hype girl
If you would have asked me to describe my mastermind group three years ago, I would have described us as a quartet of hype girls. Four cheerleaders spurring each other on in our creative endeavors. A small team of midwives who hear, “I can’t do this” and immediately scream, YES YOU CAN.
I would have described our Voxer thread (which is, more or less, active 365 days a year) as a garden bed of fertile soil, where we plant our dreams next to one another and take turns watering them.
I would have told you that every time someone wondered aloud:
Should I write about ________?
Should I start ________?
Should I make _________?
Should I try _________?
The answer was yes, and not only yes, but: OH MY GOSH YES YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY DO THAT; HOW CAN WE SUPPORT YOU?!
Walking through the world with this kind of wind at your back feels like being on one of those moving walkways at the airport. You almost feel weightless, as if you’re being carried. You feel like you can go anywhere and do anything. There are so many essays I wouldn’t have started, an entire book I wouldn’t have written, countless ideas that would have died in my head had it not been for these hype girls nudging me forward.
Somewhere along the way, though, the pendulum started to swing in the opposite direction. I don’t know when or where or how exactly this shift occurred. In the thick of the pandemic? Around the time that Katie’s life—as she knew it—cracked open like an egg oozing all over the counter? Did it happen during Sonya’s cancer diagnosis? During one of Sarah’s battles with anxiety? During my miscarriage?
Did the sheer survival of all of that simply lead to a convergence of sorts?
I don’t know. All I know is this: at some point, in the past three years, we transformed from a team of Hype Girls to a team of Boundary Setters. These days, our questions are met with a bit more pause—not out of discouragement or lack of support, but out of love.
Now whenever someone wonders aloud:
Should I write about ________?
Should I start ________?
Should I make _________?
Should I try _________?
Instead of screaming yes with our pom poms raised in the air, we take a collective beat. We ask more questions. We consider the opportunity and the cost. We consider the state of our minds, the state of our marriages, the state of our hearts. We pray for discernment. We weigh the pros and cons. We lay all of our honest thoughts on the table, spreading them out like a deck of cards.
And, more often than not, we come to a not-necessarily-yes conclusion.
Should I write about ________? Maybe, but carefully.
Should I start ________? No.
Should I make _________? Someday, but not right now.
Should I try _________? Let’s pray about this for 30 days.
Our mastermind group launched just before the pandemic with four little dreams: we each wanted to write a book.1 As such, that literally became the name of the Voxer group: Write The Book.
Within a few months’ time, we all knew the group had become something more. With a pandemic unfolding all around us, our conversations quickly transcended writing, book proposals, and various bouts of imposter syndrome. (Hot tip: if you want to solidify your friendships, try talking nonstop every day while the world is falling apart and see what happens.)
During a hard season in Katie’s life, she was—as we all have been at least once—on the brink of giving up writing altogether. She admitted, with sadness in her voice, that maybe she didn’t belong in the group anymore, but that she desperately wanted to stay.
The second I finished listening to her message, I went into my Voxer settings and changed the name of our group from “Write the Book” to “Friends for Life.”
I took a screenshot of the re-branded Voxer thread and texted it to Katie. You couldn’t get rid of us if you tried.
I don’t even think I realized it at the time, but the simple act of changing our Voxer group name represented a profound shift happening underneath the surface. We were no longer simply a group of hype girls trying to launch books into the world. We were—we are—a group of women who love each other unconditionally. We are fully dedicated to each others’ flourishing, and not just in our creative work. We care about the things we’re writing, of course, but we also care deeply about each other’s marriages. We care deeply about each other’s kids. We care deeply about the stuff we’re working through in counseling. We care about our dreams, but we also know that sometimes our very real lives require us to put those dreams on the shelf for a bit. We care about our aspirations, but we also care equally about our rest.
As the only Type 3 in our group, this shift has undoubtedly benefited me the most. When it comes to my work, I have exactly one mode: go big or go home. Typically when I have an idea, I wait around four whole seconds before putting my foot on the gas pedal.
These women are teaching me to slow down, to pause before committing, to think and pray and consider the cost before saying yes to anything and everything. I’m learning when they don’t scream YES after every idea I pitch, it’s not because they don’t love me or support me — it’s because they do.
These friends love me so much they want to protect me from myself, from my own hyperactive ambition that often steers me straight into burnout. They love all of me, not just the Type 3 me, or the goal-setting version of me, or the part of me that gets shit done.
A few days ago, I announced to our group that I was pulling out of the Coffee + Crumbs fall collection2. I have an essay in the works, but the draft is nowhere near where I want it to be. I had two options: 1) rush through edits, stress myself out 24/7 for the following five days, turn in a final version I am likely unhappy with, or—2) sit on the essay for three more months and publish it in the winter.
I’m sure there was a hint of resignation in my voice when I told my mastermind group, but any ounce of disappointment vanished the second Katie popped on and said, “Ash, I am so proud of you.”
What a gift to have this kind of hype girl in your corner—the friend who will stand in the bleachers cheering you on while you chase your goals, but will also build a fence, hold up a stop sign, and applaud just as loudly when you walk over to the sidelines, too.
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Love this and love my Mastermind group!! When I first joined Exhale, I remember wondering, How do I find these people like what Ashlee and Katie are talking about? I prayed so much about it because I just felt so alone in my writing. And then we formed this group this past spring, and just like that, they (hey, Lindsay and Courtnie!) feel like soul sisters. Sometimes I’ll try to say something and say it poorly, and they take it and say exactly what my heart was thinking, and I’ll go, “Where did you come from?!??” It’s such a gift!
!!!! SONYA’S MEMOIR !!!! (I love every word of this btw)