Tend and Befriend is a concept put forward by Shelley Taylor, Ph.D., a psychology professor who challenged the accepted notion that our only natural responses to stress were limited to Fight or Flight. Dr. Taylor and her colleagues argued that under duress, women reached out to their young and/or their peers for care (i.e. “tend and befriend”). That connection actually LOWERED STRESS. This is a science-y way of saying, “humans need each other,” which is my favorite kind of science. As a society, we are definitely under duress. Nothing is wrong with the fight or flight response in and of itself—a less catchy version of this phrase could be “protect, or run away to live another day”—but if you treat them as the only two options, you are always fighting or fleeing something. Too much leads you deep into burnout, mania, or meaninglessness and erodes the trust and honesty needed for the tend-and-befriend route. (For more details on trust in a fight-or-flight-gone-wrong society, read literally anything by Brené Brown, or at least the quotes above.) Most people long for connection, but when given the opportunity to share their truth, they offer the shallowest version of what they’re dealing with. If asked how work is, someone will answer, “My boss is a nightmare” when she really means, “I’m growing increasingly concerned that I’m working the wrong job, maybe living the wrong life.” If asked how your family is, someone will reply, “We found out that Susie is allergic to gluten/soy/dairy/corn syrup” when what she wants to say is, “This world is not safe for us. It keeps me up at night.” Shallow answers limit the depth of friendships. This breaks my heart, because I’m starting to recognize that how often I’ve tried to cultivate safe containers for tend-and-befriend bonds. It’s true for my personal relationships, and it’s true for what I’ve created in my life: *My books: One look at the covers shows you that battles are part of the story’s adventure, but for every moment of fighting and fleeing, there’s a moment or two of characters taking care of each other. *The **SPOILER** Boards: I set up a page on my author website where readers could talk freely to each other about the books, and to my surprise, delight, and deep gratitude, a vibrant online community sprang up there, with tens of thousands of comments, all by readers supporting each other. *Queen Bee Lit Pod: My best friend @essencewellness and I recently co-founded a membership-based, podcast-sharing circle, which meets monthly, in person, here in Charlotte, as a safe place for women to share stories and thrive together. The first meeting is this Friday, and we are VERY excited. (If you live in the area and you’re interested in attending, please comment or message me for details.) These examples are just illustrating the essential point: In these times of stress and duress, it helps no one to limit our responses to only two avenues (or even only four). We need every uplifting possibility we can bring to the table. We need all the help we can get. We need each other. P.S. In that paper, Dr. Taylor and her colleagues challenged the usefulness of the “fight or flight” theory overall, citing it as too limiting for women AND men. The “tend and befriend” theory, they said, was just the tip of the iceberg, possibility wise, but their findings was based on where they found the most evidence in existing research back in 2000.
