Hi there. Thanks for listening to the Sister Circle podcast. My name is Crystal Evanshurst,

and I'm your host. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the podcast that's designed to help you

live your life well and to make it a life you love. Listen, you get to choose.

How often do you say I'm fine when you really are not? What was the last time you allowed yourself to not be the strong one? And what would

it cost you? Or what would it save you to tell the truth about what you need? Listen, now, if you are a

woman when someone says, how are you doing and you say, I'm fine, are you telling yourself and

others the I'm fine lie? Because y'all,

we be saying I'm fine and lying through our teeth. So let's talk about that lie today.

If you are a woman who will answer with a curt, courteous, polite, I'm fine when someone

says, how are you doing? I want to talk to you today. I understand

that everybody asked that question and that often people ask, how are you doing to be polite?

But there are places and spaces where people will ask us that question and we bold-faced

lie about it. Maybe one, because we don't feel safe enough to answer truthfully. Number two,

maybe we don't feel like the person asking really wants to know. Number three is what good would it do for me to rehash or

reshare or conjure up what actually is going on in my life? Is it productive? Is it profitable? Does it move

the needle? But what we end up doing when people ask us, are we doing okay and we say fine,

especially in places or spaces where we probably should say a little bit more is we are paying

the cost of vulnerability, authenticity, and community. You and I were not designed to live alone.

And it doesn't matter how much we tell ourselves the story of how

strong we are or how much we can do on our own or how independent and how able we are to move

the needle or how we move the needle in the past. All of those things have no bearing on what is

true. If someone says, are you doing okay? Or they say,

...