The Friendships That Save Us: Maggie Smith

For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast

Jen Hatmaker

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.6 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Genuine heart friendships have an incredible impact on our lives, including our health. Many recent studies tout the connection between health and the quality of your relationships, and that loneliness (not to be confused with being alone) can have a negative effect on our health–possibly even bigger than smoking or drinking or poor eating. So is it possible that our friends can actually help save us? Our guest today thinks so; writer and poet extraordinaire Maggie Smith recently went through a divorce and she credits her close knit friend group for being “her parachute” in that process (much like Jen’s friends have been for her as well).

Jen and Maggie discuss these topics around friendship:

The way friends can invest in you in a way that family isn’t able to when you’re going through disruptive life moments
The friends that intuitively know what you need during a rough patch and show up proactively with solutions so you don’t feel so lost
How we can nurture those “life saving” friendships by being a good friend ourselves

Thank God for the friends who remind us of who we are–of our core goodness and worth– when a disruptive time shakes up our identity. They help bring us back to ourselves.

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Thought-Provoking Quotes:

“I was in a ‘not seeing the forest for the trees' mode. I was painting an inch from the canvas. I had no idea what the shape of anything was and I was just panicked and trying to spackle everything back together as quickly as I could. And so having people who could remind me of my goodness, my core worth, which I think is so easy to forget in these moments." - Maggie Smith

"When friends come in, they're not necessarily invested in the relationship. They're invested in your happiness. Whatever that looks like for you, it doesn't actually impact your friend a block away. If your marriage doesn't work the same way it impacts your family, who's thinking, 'Oh, what are we gonna do for Christmas now?'" - Maggie Smith

“I think there's something that we do that hurts our adult friendships in particular, which is why we prioritize them sometimes way below our romantic relationships. It happens even when we're dating. We all knew or we were the girl who was 15 and as soon as she got a boyfriend stopped hanging out with her friends on the weekends because she was like, ‘I just wanna be with my boyfriend and if he's busy then I can come hang out.’” - Maggie Smith

"Maybe someone hurt you five years ago now seems pretty small and not unmanageable or unforgivable. So what would it take to just reach out, call your friends, and have them help you craft a text to someone that you haven't talked to in a while, or leave a voicemail—if you're phone brave, I am not phone brave, so I would text or probably email. If you know where they live, send a little postcard that has some little private joke or something that reminds you of them." - Maggie Smith

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir by Maggie Smith

My Thoughts Have Wings by Maggie Smith (A picture book releasing in winter 2024 by Maggie Smith)

Moving Forward After Pain Rips Your Script: Maggie Smith (FTL Episode featuring Maggie Smith)

Guest’s Links:

Connect with Jen!
Jen’s website

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Jen’s Facebook
Jen’s YouTube

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi everybody, Jen Hammaker here, your host of The For The Love Podcast. Welcome so much
0:09.7	to the show because we're in a series I love called The Love of Community and Friendships.
0:17.9	It's just hitting us where we actually live because really no matter what season of life
0:22.6	we're in or how old we are, our career, financial situation, genuine, heart friendships, make
0:31.1	such an impact on our lives, and actually are game changers, I think, toward improving
0:37.7	our outlook and our enjoyment. There's so much interesting data tied to the connection
0:45.3	between basically longevity and health and the quality of your relationships, like so
0:54.2	much so that the quality of your relationships, the lack of loneliness, is a bigger factor
1:01.0	in your health and lifespan than smoking, drinking, nutrition. It's bananas until this
1:08.8	just matters. This just matters. And so, oh, am I ever thrilled about our guest this
1:13.4	week? Oh my gosh, I so sincerely love her. We're going to be talking about the friendships
1:18.6	that save us. I can absolutely relate because I'm just telling you without any hyperbole,
1:25.6	I don't know what I would have done these last three years without my friends. They were
1:31.0	my salvation, really. They saw me through the lowest, darkest part of my life and supported
1:38.4	me in ways. I credit them with my ability to not just grieve but recover. I really do.
1:47.4	I mean, these are the friends that, well, I tell her this, but when I was getting like
1:53.8	surprised, divorced in the middle of the pandemic, they're like, we're coming over,
1:57.9	we're redoing your bedroom. We've booked and paid for a trip to Mexico. You already have
2:02.3	a flight. You're coming. We're not taking you know for an answer. They spent almost every
2:06.7	day with me for probably six months. And so, I am a person who knows what it's like to
2:13.2	have friendships and crisis and to be so incredibly grateful for them. And so, our guide in
2:20.9	recognizing those kinds of life-saving friendships and what makes them what they are, how we can
	...

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