Last month, I listened to @drmayashankar’s podcast episode with former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy titled “What if Finding Community Wasn’t So Hard?” and one of the key things that stood out to me was this— …maybe the key to finding community is that it starts with being messy. And we need to be able to embrace the mess, whether it’s physical or internal, to start building our village. 🥲 A few excerpts from my Substack today: “Surviving postpartum depression meant that I had to learn to lean on people and ask for help, even if these people were my closest friends and family. There was a big pride pill to swallow, but PPD was my wake up call that independence wins no awards in motherhood. I needed a community…” “…I still remember the initial shock of being asked on our very first play date and exchanging numbers for the first time with a mom I barely knew. All I could think was ‘Is this the next stage of dating after you get married? To date other moms and parents and see if your kids and families are a good fit?’ It tickled me to the bone to compare romantic dating to this, but truly it felt like I started to get my first experiences at ‘mom dating’…” “The truth is this: most parents just want the company and their kids independently entertain and hang out with each other while we can talk about adult things. They don’t care if they do that in a messy house or eat Dino nuggets and apple juice while it’s happening...” Read more at pearlsofjasmine.substack.com ✨🙃🦕