Andrea Gibson

And people need to know their strength.

I didn't know I'm 47 years old.

I didn't know my strength until I was 45 years old.

I wish I had spent my life knowing my strength and to trust, you know, trust your strength.

My friend Ethel, she's in her mid seventies and she, she's one of my just most constant teachers and,

She was telling me this story that when a butterfly is trying to make its way out of a cocoon, it is a real struggle.

Like, I didn't know this.

It's really hard for a butterfly to get out of that cocoon.

And it can look really, just really bad.

And so humans, when they witness it, they often try to go and peel open the cocoon to help the butterfly out.

um but if a human does this the butterfly has far less chance of thriving because the struggle was crucial to its thriving and so we have to figure out the balance of when to really show up for each other communities that show up for each other and then also communities where we're knowing how to teach each other our strength we're saying you can get out of that cocoon i know you can and um

Yeah, and that's a thin line, a balance to figure out.

So I have all different kinds of friends, like so many different kinds of friends.

Some of them are really woo-woo.

Some of them are Christians.

Some of them are Buddhists.

Some of them are atheists.

Some of them are straight edge, you know, all of it.

I have the whole mix of people and people who are screaming, this fucking sucks.

I hate this for you.