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Rethinking Success | Mia Birdsong - 10% Happier with Dan Harris | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Rethinking Success | Mia Birdsong

10% Happier with Dan Harris

Mon Dec 29 2025

Summary

Rethinking Success: Community, Freedom, and Help – Mia Birdsong on 10% Happier

Podcast: 10% Happier with Dan Harris
Episode: Rethinking Success | Mia Birdsong
Date: December 29, 2025

Episode Overview

In this enriching conversation, Dan Harris sits down with Mia Birdsong—activist, author of How We Show Up, and founding executive director of the NextRiver Institute—to radically re-examine the meaning of “success.” Moving beyond the isolating metrics of money and power, they explore the neglected but crucial importance of community, interdependence, and care. Birdsong shares her journey from personal disconnection at the pinnacle of achievement to finding joy, survival, and genuine freedom in deeper relationships and collective mutuality. Together, they analyze how American capitalism shapes our sense of self and belonging, and discuss practical steps and real-life practices for building sustaining community, even in the face of structural obstacles.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Poverty of Conventional (Individualistic) Success

Dan Harris reflects on his therapist’s critical observation:

“Because of my conditioning in this individualistic culture, I had come to view success in a limited way, really just in terms of money and power... and I was lacking, according to the shrink, you skills. You know, skills that involved other people like communication, collaboration, compassion.” (01:06)
Birdsong’s Motivation:
Mia Birdsong describes feeling increasingly less connected the “more successful” she became, which contradicted her upbringing and her work in economic justice:

“The more ‘successful’... I was becoming, the less connected I felt and the harder it was to be in community… that is not how I grew up.” (08:22)

She noticed a pattern: Many (often white, male) attendees at her talks would confess a painful lack of community in their own lives.

2. What Mia Learned on Community, Interdependence, and Survival

Isolation as a Byproduct of the American Dream:
Birdsong argues that the American focus on independence is “fundamentally antithetical to what it means to be a person”—biologically, humans are interdependent:

“We’re not turtles... We are inherently interdependent animals... The American ideal of success is a very isolating one.” (10:52)
Marginalized Communities as Models of Mutual Support:
Birdsong’s research found the most robust models of community are often built by those excluded by mainstream systems (e.g., Black, queer, unhoused people):

“The best examples I kept finding... were among, you know, Black folks, queer folks, unhoused people, sex workers—groups who had to take care of each other outside hostile systems.” (12:58)

3. Real-World Practice: Building Community Amid Systemic Barriers

Recognizing that society doesn’t make community easy:

“We can’t bootstrap our way into community either... The conditions make it very difficult for us to have time, energy, knowledge and reinforcing experience... This requires a lot of grace.” (16:50)
Birdsong stresses that feeling disconnected is not a personal failure, but a function of larger societal structures.

“We have to give ourselves and each other a lot of grace... relationship and connection requires tending, but the circumstances that we're tending in are very hard, which means that we have to be really vigilant about it. Which means it’s exhausting...” (16:50)
Modern Life’s Obstacles:
Harris and Birdsong agree that work’s primacy in our culture squeezes out time and energy for community, rest, and the habits of well-being:

“Work is the sun around which the universe of our lives revolves, which means that it dictates our time and we’re meant to organize everything else in our lives around that.” (21:28, Mia Birdsong)

4. Capitalism and Its Alternatives

Birdsong’s critique draws a sharp line between “work” (necessary human activity) and “capitalism” (an extractive system):

“In a well society, everyone is able to participate to the best of their own abilities… We’re not taking care of people, we are extracting from them. It’s almost as if people are being held hostage to this system.” (27:05)
On reform versus abolition:

“I don’t see capitalism as a system that is meant to support us. So it doesn’t make sense to me to try to fix it. I’m much more interested in returning to/creating new systems that prioritize our well-being over profit.” (30:36)

She invokes the history of slavery, noting that generational change often springs from the courage to imagine beyond current systems—even ones that seem inescapable.

5. Practical Tools for Building Community

Collective Childraising – “Kid Fun”
A real-life story:

“Every other Saturday for four hours, all the kids would go to one family’s house, and the other couples could go have dates... It was amazing: the kids forged bonds, learned household norms, and adults got time and support.” (35:43)
Mutuality vs. Reciprocity:

“Reciprocation is... ‘I do this for you, you do that for me.’ Mutuality is understanding everyone contributes what they can, and the well-being of the community benefits all.” (44:06)

Memorable analogy:

“You have a group standing in a circle, all sitting on each other’s laps... everyone is being held, everyone is holding; the strength of the group supports each individual.” (27:55)
Working with Resentment and Boundaries:

“Resentment is information for you that a boundary has been crossed.” (49:34)

She encourages gratitude when others set boundaries (“Thank you for saying no”) and self-reflection when resentment arises: adjust boundaries rather than continuing to over-give.

6. “How Do I Actually Build Community?”—Practical Steps

Birdsong urges self-inquiry first:

“There’s some internal questioning... what is the space in myself that I have for relationship, what are the things that I need from relationship and like, what kinds of relationships can I get that from?” (52:52)
Actionable Community-Building Tips:
- Get to know your neighbors: Bake goods, leave a welcome note, share contact info. Start by just trading practical support (watching pets, borrowing ingredients).
- Enlist an extrovert as a bridge if you’re introverted.
- Pair up with others for mutual support—don't try to “bootstrap” community alone.
- Have direct conversations about what kind of relationship/friendship you want to build.
- Give relationships time; strong bonds don’t form instantly, especially in adulthood.
And, perhaps most crucially:

“Being in relationship is who we are and we actually know how to do it—we just have to give ourselves permission to do it because it can feel really fucking awkward...” (57:23)

7. Friendship, Freedom, and Asking for Help

The Etymological Connection:

“The root of friendship and freedom is a Sanskrit word that means ‘beloved.’... To be free was to be in connected community.” (62:57)

She links this to Black history in America—oppression has so often taken the form of severing connection, of being made “unfree” by separation from loved ones.
Freedom as Practice:

“If being free is about being in connected community, that’s not a thing you just step into and then it’s there—it’s a thing we need to practice… One of the things I struggle with is asking for help.” (69:15)

Birdsong tells how a cancer diagnosis pushed her to explicitly ask for and receive care from her community, which turned out to be deeply nourishing not just for her, but for those supporting her:

“Asking for help transformed certainly my experience of going through surgery and chemotherapy… The thing I kept hearing over and over was how beautiful and nurturing it was for the people who were able to help me.” (69:15–74:26)

8. Memorable Quotes & Moments

On rugged individualism:

“I would go so far as to say it’s a kind of self-hatred to be independent.” – Mia Birdsong (69:15)
On American freedom:

"A hallmark of American freedom is that you can do whatever the fuck you want and not be responsible for or accountable to anybody. And...that's actually the opposite of freedom. We've been told...freedom is a thing that's actually the opposite of freedom." – Mia Birdsong (62:57)
On giving and receiving:

“Giving people a chance to be decent, to be helpful, to be generous, actually, is a kind of a gift.” – Dan Harris (75:10)

Timestamps for Key Segments

01:06 — Dan’s personal “apex of Western man” anecdote; introduction of “I” vs. “you” skills
08:22 — Mia describes why she started exploring community
10:52–14:04 — Critique of independence & lessons from marginalized communities
16:50–21:28 — Practicing community, barriers in modern society, giving ourselves grace
27:05–33:53 — Capitalism, alternatives, and the analogy of mutual support
35:43–40:50 — “Kid Fun” and raising children collectively
44:06 — Mutuality vs. reciprocity
47:41–51:56 — Processing rejection, resentment, and boundaries in community
52:52–57:23 — Practical advice for introverts, newcomers, and rebuilding connection
62:57–69:15 — Etymology of “friendship” and “freedom”; freedom as connection, not independence
69:15–75:05 — Practicing freedom, transformative power of asking for help, and Mia’s cancer story

Conclusion

This conversation asks listeners to rethink not only the way we define and chase “success” but also how we conceptualize belonging, strength, and freedom. Mia Birdsong’s hard-won wisdom and lived practices demonstrate that community is not a soft, optional add-on—it is essential, generative, and possible, even under difficult conditions. Building the world we want begins with reclaiming connection, being brave enough to ask for (and receive) help, and daring to imagine a different system altogether.

Mia’s book: How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community
Organization: NextRiver – Institute for Practicing the Future

Notable Mic-Drop:

“To be free was to be in connected community... Friendship and freedom used to sit together, right? They came from the same womb.” – Mia Birdsong (62:57)

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Transcript

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Dan Harris (0:32)

This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Interviewer (0:46)

Hello everybody.

Dan Harris (0:47)

How we doing? Something I've been thinking about and writing about a lot lately is how to define success. A shrink, a therapist I was seeing, once observed that I was, psychologically speaking, the apex of Western man. I believe that was the phrase he used.

Interviewer (1:04)

And I also believe he did not.

Dan Harris (1:06)

Mean this as a compliment. He observed that because of my conditioning in this individualistic culture, I had come to view success in a limited way, really just in terms of money and power. And the skills that I had honed in this regard were what the psychologists called I skills, meaning they were all about myself. You know, how to work hard, how, how to hone my craft, how to stick up for myself. And I was lacking, according to the shrink, you skills. You know, skills that involved other people like communication, collaboration, compassion. And I want to add here that this is not gooey or gauzy stuff. You skills. As the Wharton organizational psychologist and best selling author Adam Grant has often argued these days in the workplace, character skills. In other words, you skills are more important than cognitive skills, high skills.

Interviewer (1:52)

Anyway.

Dan Harris (1:53)

I bring all this up because it was in this spirit that I got interested in the work of a writer named Mia Birdsong, who is my guest today. Mia has some provocative ideas about rethinking success, independence, individualism, and the American dream. For her, the real keys are relationships and community, I. E. You skills. I want to say just early and often here. I'm aware that words like relationships and community can come off as soft or cliched or anodyne or meaningless. That's the way they came off for me for many, many years. But there is a growing body of research and thought that strongly suggests that these are actually the critical skills for health, for happiness, and as I mentioned before, for success. So in this conversation, we talk about how to build community, what it looks like in Mia's life. Community, mutuality as a concept versus reciprocity, how to work with resentment and rejection in community, the etymological connection between friendship and freedom. I find that fascinating, the transformative power of asking for help. Something many of us struggle with. Why she thinks the idea of bootstrapping or going it alone is a kind of self hatred. It's a provocative idea and much more. Just a little bit more about Mia Birdsong before we dive in. She's the founding executive director of of a think tank called Next river and the author of a book called How We Show Up. This interview was originally recorded and aired in the spring of 2024, but we're reposting it as we approach a new year because we feel it could provoke a radical rethink for you and this is the time of year to be doing that kind of work. Before we dive in, I want to do a quick plug here for the new 10% app.

Dan Harris (4:35)

The break and get to the conversation. But one last note. We will not be holding our weekly live meditation on Tuesday, December 30th since I and many of you will be on vacation. I will, however, be live and with you three times during the New Year's Challenge. The regular live meditation and Q and a session at 4 o' clock on Tuesday 6th January, but we'll do those again at 4 Eastern on the 8th and the 11th. Okay, we'll get started with Mia Birdsong right after this. Today's show is sponsored by Huell. That's H U E L. There's this great guy who does some work on our house here in New York, Christopher. Shout out to Christopher and when he found out that Huell was sponsoring the show and that they had very kindly sent me several cases of their stuff, he was super excited because he's a power user of Huel and I gave him some Huel and he is just delighted. One of their products is something called Huel Ready to Drink. It's a complete meal in a bottle. 35 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber, and 27 vitamins and minerals. Literally ready to go. No prep, no mess and it keeps you full when the alternative is grabbing whatever holiday snack is closest. I'm also digging Huel's new Canned Super Greens drink. I've got a bunch of cans in the fridge, 42 vitamins and nutrients, 4 grams of fiber, 25 calories, no added sugar. In December, it is often the case that our vegetable intake bottoms out because we're spending so much time at holiday parties. Fuels Canned Super Greens Drink can be an answer to that. Three flavors to choose from. Apple, Peach and Blueberry. If you're trying to stay fueled during the busiest, snackiest time of the year, Huel makes it easy and Huel just launched into Target nationwide. You can find them in the health and wellness aisle. Get 15% off your first order at Huell.com with the code HAPPIER. That's code HAPPIER. H A P P I E R Minimum $75 Purchase Huge thanks to Huel for helping me and Christopher stay sane and healthy this holiday season and for supporting this podcast. I have to admit, one growing source.

Mia Birdsong (10:52)

No, I'm not thinking that. I'm thinking, like, what are I mean, I learned a lot of things. And the book that I wrote was really my own process and journey. Right. I wasn't writing it. You know, I think sometimes people write a book because they've done a bunch of research and they have a perspective, and they're going to bestow this wisdom on you. And for me, it was really that I had a bunch of questions and I was struggling with something, and I wanted to share the perspectives and answers and information that I was getting as I was struggling. So I learned a lot of things. I learned that, you know, kind of unsurprisingly, the American ideal of what success is is a very isolating one. You know, we really uphold the idea of independence as a measure of success, which is kind of fundamentally antithetical to what it means to be a person. We are not independent. We're not, you know, we're not turtles where our mom, like, lays a bunch of eggs on the beach and then is like, you know, peace out. Good luck with the seagulls. We don't raise ourselves. We don't care for ourselves. We don't acquire the things we need to live, like food and shelter and, you know, water on our own. We are inherently interdependent animals. Like, biologically, that's who we are. And that is in opposition with the kind of ideal that America puts forward in terms of what success looks like. So it made sense to me that part of what I was experiencing as I achieved this version of success was isolation. We are a society that. That is, like, allergic to asking for help because we see that as a sign of weakness. But, of course, all of us need help and support, and not only do we need it, but we and the people who are offering it benefit from it. I learned that the best models we have for how to be in relationship with each other, with how to build friendships and families and communities. The best examples of those are happening in the most marginalized communities, I think, largely because the systems of success and support that we have, you know, either kind of exclude those folks or harm them. And people have had to, for survival reasons, figure out how to take care of each other outside of those systems. And I don't want to romanticize, like, the experience of being, know, oppressed as, like, a black person or a queer person or an unhoused person. And certainly not. That's not a universal experience for people who are marginalized. But the examples that I kept finding as I was interviewing people and as I was researching these ideas were among, you know, black folks, queer folks, Unhoused people, sex workers, groups of people who have really had to figure out how to survive in hostile environments.

Mia Birdsong (16:50)

I mean, the honest answer is that I still struggle with it. And this is the other thing that I think I learned since in kind of the book coming out and then having conversations with people about it as they tried to put into practice ways of being in relationship that were deeper than what they had before. And I mean, I. I still feel like I have an amazing, you know, community and I feel more connected to people. But I'm also very clear that this is not a like, you know, we can't bootstrap our way into community either. We live in a society where the conditions do not actually support our relationships with each other. The conditions make it very difficult for us to have time, energy, knowledge and like reinforcing experience of being in connected relationship with each other. So one of the things that I say so much more to people now is like, if this is hard, even though this is who we are, right? We do not. It's like we are air breathing creatures. If we had to survive in the ocean, like, it would be hard, right? So even though this is who we are, we struggle with it and that we have to recognize that so that we don't feel like, you know, we're failing at something that we should be good at. We have to give ourselves and each other a lot of grace and relationship and connection requires tending. But the circumstances that we're tending in are very hard, which means that we have to be really vigilant about it. Which means it's exhausting, right? Sometimes it's very exhausting to try to like maintain connection and relationship. So now I think that I'm just more aware of when it's working and when it's not for me and both giving myself kind of permission to be shitty at it and also noticing and checking in with myself to see if there are things that I can do to shift that. And sometimes there aren't. Sometimes I just go through a little period of feeling like I'm not as connected to my folks as I'd like to be. You know, as problematic as some of our technology is, I'm so grateful that I can, you know, text a whole bunch of people at once as opposed to having to like, I don't know, call them on the phone or visit them individually to just say, like, I'm thinking about you. Sorry if I've been absent. Like I notice you've been absent, like whatever that is, to just kind of maintain a little bit of the noticing of what's not working if I can't actually make it work.

Mia Birdsong (21:28)

Yeah. And I think that part of it is again, in the context of capitalism, we have to provide labor in order to earn this made up thing called money so that we can get our basic needs met so we can literally stay alive. Right. We have food and shelter and you know, ideally some form of healthcare and education and that just, that takes up so much of our time and energy that all of those other things which we absolutely need to live a life of well being, like we can't actually, like we're not failing ourselves if we can't hit those things right. It is that our culture is actually failing us. That we live in a culture that is designed to impede us from being well, people because it's trying to extract from us our labor. And I think it's really important, especially for folks who are struggling with any of those things, to recognize that, you know, we live in a society where work is the sun around which the universe of our lives revolves, which means that it dictates our time and we're meant to organize everything else in our lives around that. And some of us absolutely, like and myself included, have the privilege of being able to dictate some of that. But nonetheless, if I don't work, I don't eat. If I don't work, my family does not have a place to live. So there is a prioritization there that has to happen. And that means that exercise, nutrition therapy, nature, right? All those things that you named end up being like, the second thing that I do, like, the work piece has to come first or I die, right? Or we end up on the street or whatever. And part of the leap of faith I think we need to take around the relationship piece is that when it's working, it brings ease to all of those other things, right? There's a way in which I need to pay more attention to time in nature or meditation or nutrition or exercise if I'm super disconnected from my people because my body, my system, my spirit, my mental health is not as supported if I'm not connected to other people. So there are all these levers to push and pull. There's no actual stasis of balance that we get to, which can be like, really discouraging, right? Like to say that things are systems and you can't actually change those things, right? On the one hand, I think is important to know, like, it's not your fault, right? It's not your fault that you're struggling with these things. And it also can feel too big to actually do anything about. And that's a place that I really like to sit in that tension, right? Of like, the potential for just feeling hopeless and despondent about it all, versus the ways in which we can kind of create our own micro infrastructures of support, the ways in which we can organize to change those systems, the ways in which we can recognize that we have a. Like, no matter who your people are, right? There's some history of your ancestors having to struggle with some of these same things and figuring out how to stand in a long arc. That is not just about, like, what is it that you experience in your lifetime, but what did your ancestors pass on to you and what are you passing on to your descendants? So that it's not just we live in this fucked up system and it is preventing Me from realizing the best possible version of myself, but knowing that is actually generational work that needs to happen and figuring out what is yours to do in that arc. And I feel like that's where my hope kind of stays, is that, yes, like, I'm not going to live in a society that is actually as supportive of all of its living beings as it should be, but I can do my part while I'm here to make sure that my descendants are a little closer to whatever that is.

Mia Birdsong (27:05)

Yeah. So I think there is, like, separating the idea that work is capitalism. Right. Of course human beings have to do things in order to access the things we need to survive. Those things don't just, like, come to us. It's that we live in a system where we have to participate in the kind of grind of being productive in order to earn money. And that if we do not do that, we starve. Right. Or don't receive medical care, or we can't have a house in a well society. Everyone is able to participate to the best of their own abilities. And because it's a collective right, there is a sense of responsibility for everyone who's in that collective. So, you know, we are people who are taking care of children, are participating in some way, and we make sure that they have food and shelter and water and care and rest and all the things that they need. People with disabilities, right. They exist. So we don't say like, you know, you don't. You're not participating and you're not being productive, so you don't get to eat. We have elders, right, who have, you know, less energy, less physical capacity, whatever, and we still make sure that those folks are taken care of. One of the analogies that I sometimes use is there's this. I think it's a trust game. Maybe I don't remember what it is exactly, but you have a group of people and they're all standing in a circle with, like, their right shoulder facing in, and they're all kind of tightly together and everybody sits down. So everyone is being held and everyone is holding. And, you know, someone who's much smaller than me can hold. I can be sitting in their lap because the strength of the group is actually supporting them and holding me. And I feel like that is just a beautiful analogy of what the alchemy and, like, physics of a, well, community looks like. Everyone is being held, everyone is holding, and everybody is contributing to whatever their capacity is. And, you know, over the course of our lifetimes or over the course of a week, like, our capacity changes. But we, in our, in, in our society, people are expected to show up to work, often for a wage that doesn't actually allow them to access the things that they need to live. And they're expected to do that regardless of what their capacity is that day. So people show up to work sick. They show up to work when they have people to take care of, they show up to work. And when, like, transportation systems aren't working, and if they don't, they get fired. And that is the reality for a huge number of people in our society. And we're just. We're not taking care of people and we're not providing them with the things they need. We are extracting from them. And it's almost as if people are being held hostage to this system because if they don't participate, they'll die or they'll be on the street or they'll be malnourished, and they certainly will not be well, emotionally.

Mia Birdsong (30:36)

I mean, I don't see capitalism as a system that is meant to support us. So it doesn't make sense to me to try to fix it. I'm much more interested in returning to slash creating new systems that prioritize our well being as opposed to profit. And as I say that, you know, I myself have an internal voice that's like, that's unrealistic. And you know, all the things and what I say to that voice and what I ask people who think that's ridiculous or unachievable is, I mean, one we don't know unless we try. And we've also done a lot of hard things. I mean, the thing that I always go back to for myself when I think about what it means to and awful systems is I think about, I mean, this is where I go back to generational work, right? I think about my ancestors in like, I don't know, the 1700s and know that there were folks who were enslaved, who were like, we really, we just need to make like less shitty slavery, right? Like, we need to create some laws and some regulations so that this system is less harmful to us. Because they couldn't imagine it not existing because it had existed for generations and would go on to exist for generations after they were dead. And then there were other folks who were like, no, like this system is just like fundamentally morally wrong and corrupt and it needs to not exist. And those folks were like, we need to abolish it, we need to get rid of it. And they never saw the end of it, but they believed that it was not enough to just kind of tinker around the edges of something that should not exist. So I try to put myself, when I think about capitalism, I try to put myself in the mindset of being like, you know, it's all I've ever known. It's all generations of us have ever known. But it has not existed forever, right? It's not the only way to do things. And I think that we as human beings are like infinitely creative and have such capacity for imagining and building new things. And I'm like, let's try something different. And I don't know how we get there. Like, let's be clear, I don't know, like what? I don't have like a plan or a strategy for that. And there are people who absolutely have thought about these things. That's not my lane, that's not the role that I hold. But I see the ways in which capitalism is harmful not just to us, but I mean we're, it's literally destroying the planet that we live on. It is harmful to like all life on the planet. And I'm like, I don't want to just keep a system because it's really big and seems hard to get rid of if it's actually going to end up getting rid of us.

Mia Birdsong (35:43)

Absolutely. Neither of my husband or I grew up in families where our parents were the only people raising us. I was raised by my mom. My father was absolutely a part of my life. But I lived with my mother full time, and she, as a single working person, figured out fairly early on that that was like not a thing you do by yourself. And she had friends who were basically my aunties and helped raise me. And then I think there was also just that my kind of school community of folks, my friends and I helped raise each other. My friends, parents helped raise me. So that was a context that I grew up in where there was just like lots of caring adults around me, supporting me and whatever it was I was doing. And then my husband grew up in a kind of like the opposite kind of context where he lived with his parents. He's one of seven. And they lived in a commune. Sounds too culty, but like a very tight knit rural community. So there were just groups of kids running around all the. All the time. There were lots and lots and lots of adults who were doing caretaking of children, helping to raise kids. We like. I am now part of that community. So there are all these folks who my husband and his siblings grew up with, who are people that my children have now grown up with. So we both grew up in that context. And, you know, part of what we were talking about earlier is why I wrote the book that I wrote. And what I saw is that for us, right, like, we live in a city, we own our own home, we both at the time were essentially running our own businesses. And there was a way in which it was super easy to kind of isolate and feel like everything that needed to happen for our children was going to be up to us. And there was a point after my son was born when I was just like, this is. This is some bullshit. Like, at the very least, I need to have some dates with my husband. And I was thinking about how occasionally we would pay for a babysitter and go out to eat. And I was like, that's, you know, I like a fancy cocktail. Like, that becomes very expensive. So I thought, you know, there are other families who are struggling with the same thing. And I talked to two other families that my daughter, the kids all went to school together. And we started this thing called Kid Fun. And that was our marketing for the kids. We didn't call it date night. And every other Saturday for like four hours, all the kids would go to one family's house and then the other two couples could go, do whatever, go have dates. Sometimes for us, that meant we could go and have sex, like when it was light out still in our house. Like, we would stay home and like, you know, get takeout, have sex and like, watch a movie. So there was certainly the intended result was like, that I got to spend this time with my husband where we were not, you know, caretaking. We were not talking about logistics. We could just, like, hang out and enjoy each other's company. But there ended up being all of these other benefits that thrilled me and part of it was about the kids and their relationships with each other and that they, you know, had this regular time when they would spend time together in each other's homes. They got to be in different households and adapt to, like, whatever the rules in that household are. And that, I feel like, is just such a good skill for people to have. Right. I also found that when we had the kids in our house, like, they were entertaining themselves. They were, like, you know, playing, they were watching, whatever. And I still got to have kitchen date with my husband. We would be in the kitchen, the kids would be eating pizza. We'd take our pizza and a glass of wine and, like, be in the kitchen, and the kids would be in the living room. So we still got to, like, spend time with each other, which was amazing. And then the other thing was about the relationships that the kids had with the adults who weren't their parents, and the ways in which I myself got close to children who were not my children, the ways in which I saw my kids develop relationships with adults who were not their parents. And the love and care that those relationships provided for them was just really beautiful. And that was just, like, it was so easy to structure and put together. Everybody was excited about it. You know, we stopped doing it when our kids could start being at home by themselves. But I think during those early years when you're just kind of consumed with the relentlessness of taking care of little people who can't, you know, make their own dinner or obviously be trusted to be home by themselves, it was such a relief for us. But also, there were all these other benefits that ended up happening, which was amazing.

Dan Harris (40:50)

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Mia Birdsong (44:06)

I mean in this context we did because we just kind of rotated. But I think of other contexts where again if there are enough people that it's not about reciprocation, right? It's about mutuality. And for me that distinction is reciprocation is I do this thing for you that's worth this amount of Time or money or there's some calculation that happens and then with the understanding that at some point you will do that thing for me, right. Or something equivalent for me. Whereas mutuality feels much more. It's less about a one on one relationship. It feels like it's about a group. And it is that everybody contributes to their capability and that we understand that the folks who in the moment or consistently can contribute less that them getting what they need benefits us. Right? So it's not like we're all doing more to take care of this person and it's completely altruistic, but it's actually this understanding that our own well being is dependent on the well being of the people in our community and, and that, you know, like all of us contribute in the ways that we can. It's looking at the complexity of contribution as well, right? Like I had a friend who had to move recently and I had my husband come over because I was like, he's. He'll just kind of like come and like he's my farmhand at home, right? If I need like bales of hay or whatever moved. And it's not because he's actually stronger than me, it's because my contribution tends to be more of the like management organizing of things, right. Like I don't clean the house, he does. I want the bales of hay moved. Like he'll do that for me. So I had him come over to help move stuff with us. And to be clear, this was my Pilates instructor. There were a whole lot of very strong people there. But I was like, he should come and bring some energy that is like he will just do whatever we tell him to do as opposed to being. Trying to manage it. Because there were a lot of us in the management role and he did it not because he don't take Pilates with her, but he knows that her well being benefits me, right. And she is part of our community. And there was a way in which I feel like that, that knowing, right, that like we, we do things for somebody in our community because we know that they deserve whatever that is and we recognize that they have a role in our community that is facilitated, right, by our supporting them. I mean, I keep going back to the word alchemy because it feels very like somebody could probably do the math. But you don't need to because you just. There's a kind of like pragmatic faith that you have to have in that context that I find is in and of itself a nourishing thing, right. When I can show up for people that I love when it is me giving freely of my time, energy, commitment, whatever. There's a way in which I am nourished by that, right? That I'm nourished by supporting other people.

Mia Birdsong (49:34)

I mean, I don't have that, but I think that what I would do is have a conversation. So one of the things my therapist said to me and my husband very early when we were in couples therapy with her is, she said, resentment is information for you that a boundary has been crossed. And I was so mad about that because I was like, isn't resentment when I get to be like self righteous about somebody else, like fucking up or not doing enough? So if I'm asking something of somebody and they're consistently saying no and I'm doing a lot for them and I'm feeling resentful, that's information for me that I maybe shouldn't be providing as much in that relationship. And part of it depends on what it is, right? Like if it's somebody who like, can't do the. Like, I'm not going to like, there's a match that you have to have to kind of like have with what it is you're asking for in somebody's capacity. And if I'm consistently asking them for something they don't have the capacity for, that means I need to understand more about what their capacity is. But I feel like you're asking for a question about contexts in which people often, like, they're in relationships with people who are a little selfish, right? And are often asking for things but not giving. And then I'm like, yeah. So for me, a balanced relationship, right, is I don't want to be giving things to people who are selfish and are not willing to give of themselves. So for me, the answer would be, I mean, I'd want to have the conversation. But it's also like, then I need to provide less, right? I need to. I'm no longer giving freely if I'm feeling resentful. So I need to set my own boundary around what it is I'm going to do for that person. Now there are, I definitely have people in my life for whom I do more for them than they do for me. And I'm fine with it. It doesn't feel it like, is an easy thing for me to do and there's nothing I actually want from them. And that feels fine to me. And again, it's because I'm not thinking that the relationship needs to be reciprocal, that there needs to be balance because human beings aren't that way, right? We all have different capacities and abilities and people got shit going on in their lives, right? So if I'm not feeling resentful, then that's fine, but if I am, then I need to like reassess what's going on in that relationship for me.

Mia Birdsong (52:52)

So the first thing that, yes, I get asked this question all the time and I always say I don't know, but this is the question. This is the thing I feel like we need to ask ourselves, right? There's some internal questioning that I feel like I need to do about what kind of connection I'm looking for and why. Like, I really want to understand what is the space in myself that I have for relationship, what are the things that I need from relationship and like, what kinds of relationships can I get that from? So one of the things that just came up for me is I'm thinking about like, you know, mia in her 20s, was often looking for romantic relationships to fill some hole in myself. And that is not a hole that's ever going to be filled by a romantic relationship. And at some point I got to a place where I realized that and I got to take care of myself around that thing. And it allowed for romantic relationships that function in a very different way and that were not problematic for me. So I think knowing are these things that I need to get from myself or are these things that I need to get from other people is really important. And then I think that there's a. I mean, you kind of brought up a bunch of different scenarios, right? So when I think about the introvert, I think about how many introverts know an extrovert and can like pair up with that person. And like, a lot of this requires that we talent ourselves, right? That we actually say to the people in our lives, this is a thing that I feel like I need to work on. This is something I want more of in my life. Can we talk about how to do that with each other or. Or can we talk about how to do that in our community? Or can you tell me how you did that here, right in this particular context? So that's one thing is just like, you know, I mean, one of the things people often talk about is getting to know their neighbors. And I'm like, there's no magic, like, skill. You need to get to know your neighbors. I've told people to like, especially if they're introverts. I'm like, pair up with the one, you know, extroverted neighbor, you know, or another introverted neighbor. So y' all can just support each other. Like, you know, when I get a new neighbor to my neighborhood, we have a bakery that's real close. So I buy some cupcakes or whatever, I write a note, and I welcome them to the neighborhood. I give them my cell phone number and my husband's cell phone number, and I leave it on their doorstep, right? And inevitably, I get a text, you know, that day, saying, thank you. And then if there's a relationship to build beyond, can you just pick up a package for me? That's when that starts. In my. On my neighborhood, like, we have. There's a group text with a handful of us who. We watch each other's animals. I'm never worry if I'm, like, out of lemons or onions or soy sauce or whatever, I know somebody else is gonna have it, and I can, you know, get it. We make the kids do the, like, running across the street to get whatever the thing is and that, like, that's, like, the beginning of those relationships, right? And then, you know, you don't need to be best friends with your neighbors, but y' all should definitely know your neighbors. I feel like that's a piece of advice that I will. I'll, like, die on that hill. You should know who your neighbors. The other thing I think is, especially for folks who are like, you know, have just moved, is that we don't build these relationships in a day, right? Relationships take time to build. You have to find your people. It is certainly more challenging when you're not a child in school or in college anymore to build those kinds of relationships. Like, part of what we assume is going to happen in the context of school is. Is that we're going to meet people who we're going to be friends with. Sometimes you meet those people in your workplace, and that's great if that happens. And sometimes it just takes time, and you have to, like, be out in the world. And it has been really hard for folks to be out in the world for the last several years because out in the world has been a dangerous place. But there's just some, like, spaciousness we need to give ourselves as we begin to find the places where our people are going to be. And then I do think there is this process of, like, actually having conversations with people who are already in relationship about, like, what kind of relationship you want, and to see if they want something that can be more close or reliable or, like, you know, kind of take it to whatever the next level would be in terms of that friendship or relationship.

Mia Birdsong (62:57)

This is, like, one of my favorite things, and partly because. Because this research that I came across is actually what I'm doing now. So when I was doing research for my book, I came across in a couple of different places, actually. So this information about freedom that just, like, resonated with me, I had never heard before, and I just, like, I could not let go of it. So one is that the etymological root of the word friendship, and the word freedom is a Sanskrit word that means beloved. And just that in and of itself, I was like, oh, friendship and freedom, they used to, like, sit together, right? They, like, came from the same womb. And I was just like, I don't know how to think about that. But, yes, like, my spirit just said yes to that information. And then the other piece was that pre 1500s, right, in a, like, very different Western context from the one we have right now, Someone who was enslaved was understood as being unfree, partly because they were in bondage, but also because they had been separated from their people, so that to be free was to be in connected community. And again, this, like, totally resonated with me. And it just made sense to me because of what I know about human biology and who we are as people, right? Like, we be in the tribe, right? Like, that's just, like our state of being is with the collective. And I went down, like, three different rabbit holes in my mind when I read these pieces of information. So the first piece was it Recast for me my understanding of black people's experience in America. And if we think about your people as not just being, you know, the human beings that you like are in proximity to, but your ancestors, the land that you're on, your relationships with other living things, right? So that when black folks were kidnapped and trafficked from African continent across the ocean, we were obviously, we were being separated, like, deeply from our people. And then if you look at the way that slavery was practiced in America, like there was this intrinsic piece of it that was about the constant threat of being sold away from your people. And then obviously for many people, the experience of being sold away from your people. If you look at the kind of post reconstruction white supremacist terrorism in the south that created a refugee crisis that we call the Great Migration, again, black folks being driven away from land and family through to the prison industrial complex, to child protective services, there has been this American project of trying to make black people unfree by separating us from each other. And we see this too with, like, indigenous folks and, you know, boarding schools with practices at the US Border with Mexico. People being separated from each other as a way of making them unfree. And then, of course, anytime you're perpetrating any kind of oppression on people, there's always the resistance to it, right? So black folks jumping overboard, slave ships, being like, I'm gonna get back to my people one way or another. People obviously rebelling, running away from, resisting being away from their folks. On the plantation after emancipation, there were thousands of advertisements placed by black folks who were trying to find loved ones who they hadn't seen in decades. They're archived. You can find them online. They're beautiful and utterly heartbreaking. And then I think about a lot of the resistance movements that exist being about like, how are we making sure that we can be with each other? And then, like, I can't tell you how many black folks I know who found out, like, when they were grown ups that, you know, their Uncle Bobby is not actually their father's brother, but is their father's, like, best friend from, you know, grade school. So there's this way in which we also just, like, make family with each other. So there was that rabbit hole of just like, understanding this American project to try to make black people unfree and our resistance to that kind of unfreedom. The other rabbit hole I went down was thinking about what I had learned and what kind of gets promoted as freedom in America and that it is deeply about independence. It is about, again, like, getting enough Resources so that you can get everything you need through transaction and not relationship. A hallmark of American freedom is that you can do whatever the fuck you want and not be responsible for or accountable to anybody. And as I thought about that, I was like, oh, that's like actually the opposite of freedom. We've been told there's been this like hundreds year grift that America has been pulling on all of us telling us that freedom is a thing that's actually the opposite of freedom. And then I thought about what would this country be like if we believed that to be free was to be in connected community? What would our economy look like? What would our school system look like? What would our healthcare system look like? What would our neighborhoods be like? How would we think about designing, right, like cities? How would it change the way that we, what we expect from each other and what we expect from, you know, government or other institutions? And I was like, well, that's the world I want to live in. I want that one. The one where we believe, as Fannie Lou Hamer said, right, nobody's free unless everybody's free. Where we recognize, right, that like my well being actually is dependent on the well being of my neighbors. And that when I am, you know, in the example I gave of that cantilevered everybody sitting on each other's laps thing, right, when I hold you, everybody else is holding me. That's the world that I want to live in.

Mia Birdsong (69:15)

So if being free is about being in connected community, right? That's not a thing that you just step into and then it's there. It actually is a thing that we need to practice. It is a thing we need to work on, both kind of our own, like noticing the places that we have where we don't believe it either because we don't trust that we can have it or something in us is resisting it. You know, like one of the things that I absolutely struggle with is asking for help, right? Is like not kind of doing whatever it is myself. I feel like our audience is absolutely familiar with this. But if I believe that freedom is a collective practice, then my asking for help, right, my well being is something that the people who love me actually are invested in and people want to help me. Because part of the reason we don't ask for help is because we believe that it makes us weak. But the other thing is that we don't think people will actually help us. I would go so far as to say it's a Kind of self hatred to be independent. So I feel like I need to push myself to ask for help when I feel myself being resistant to it because I'm uncomfortable with it. In the summer of 2021, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. And I remember making an explicit decision to not be a strong person through it. To not be like, I'm a kick cancer's ass. Like, I'm a. Do you know all of that? To, like, perform a kind of, you know, strong black woman. And I wrote emails to. Well, first, there was, like, a group of folks who, like, anointed themselves my care squad. And I wrote an email to my community, and I was like, this is what's happening. I want all of you to help me. There are things that only I can do, right? Nobody else can go through chemo for me. Nobody else can go through surgery and recover. Nobody else can hydrate me. Like, there are things that I have to do myself. But I was like, everything else that can be done by another person, I am asking you all to do that. And my community showed up in the most gorgeous, beautiful, powerful way. And I will also say, because we were talking about the conditions that allow us to be in community earlier. This was this period of the pandemic, which for my folks, things had slowed down a lot, right? People were not working as much. There was a lot of spaciousness. And I know that folks would have shown up for me before and they would show up for me now. But I think that there was a way in which the conditions that we were existing in allowed for a level of joy and creativity and the way that people showed up for me. So, like, me and my family being fed, that was a given. That was like the low bar. There were spreadsheets. There was a walk crew of folks who would come to my house and make sure I was going for walks. There was an errand crew that, like, if I needed anything, the captain of the errand crew would, like, text everybody and somebody would go get whatever it was. When I was in the hospital getting part of my colon removed, there was a group of people on the lawn of the hospital singing for me. My folks created a joy fund for me that was like a pot of money for me to just spend on something that brought me joy. I bought art supplies because I could be in bed and do art and that asking for help. That decision transformed certainly my experience of going through surgery and chemotherapy. And just to be clear, I'm like, totally fine now. It supported my family, right? Because it's Covid And I have no immune system. No one can come in our house, right? So my husband's doing a lot of the caretaking inside, but there was a whole bunch of people outside making sure that whatever we needed for that care to happen was available. But the thing that I kept hearing over and over again was how beautiful and nurturing it was for the people who were able to help me to be in the. In a community of folks who are supporting me, right? Like, it did something for them. And I hope that this is a lesson that I never forget, because one, it was. I mean, it was uncomfortable sometimes to be asking, right? And to know that, like, I'm not. I'm just sitting here being sick and feeling like shit, like I'm not doing anything for anybody. So it was uncomfortable. But I could see, and people told me over and over again, how much beauty and joy it brought them to be able to support me in that way, but also to be doing it with this group of people, right? There were hundreds of people involved, and they didn't all know each other, but there was a way in which they could see, like, how other people were supporting me. It felt like people felt like they were alive. People felt. And especially in this moment when we were going through this pandemic, right? It brought people a sense of purpose and capacity and a belief that, like, we can do these things for each other.