United A.F (As Friends)

There's so much to talk about grief and yet, we don't have those conversations with our family: how to mourn, what to do when someone dies, how to move on and how to prepare for death. We continue the conversation and touch on the topics that society hasn't prepared us for. 

In this episode, we discuss this heavy topic, exploring how grief is/isn't talked about in our families, how we've mourned for loved ones and our experience with learning more about grief. 

After some technical difficulties, we finally got to finish our conversation about loving yourself! We explore our inner monologue, digging to find the root cause of our thought process and finally answer the question: "Do You Really Love Yourself?" Join in on the conversation through our social media pages. 

Welcome Back!!! In our very first episode for season two, we're jumping right in and what better discussion to have for the month of love than to talk about self-love. We ask the deep questions about self-love, self-care, etc. and how it relates to us in order to determine: “Do I love my-self?” 

We're back for another season! We're doing things a little bit different with digging deeper into each topic. Our first episode will come out later this week. Can't wait for you to listen!

We made it to one year! We're so happy to have been making episodes for one year already. In this episode, we reflect on how we got this podcast started, which episodes were our favourite and even difficult to partake in. When we started this podcast, we thought it would just be for fun, but the result of all of these episodes has been truly rewarding for us and has made our friendship connect on a level we never thought of. So enjoy this episode and make sure to listen to our other episodes! We'll be back for season two in 2022!

With the last person of the friend group finally turning 30, we are all now officially in a new decade as we continue through life. In this episode, we go through memory lane, talking about our own dreams and goals and how the events around us has shaped the paths we are currently taking. Lastly, we reflect on ourselves and our own evolution: how do we feel about it, what are we going to do about it and more. What about you? Have you looked into your own evolution lately? Has your goals changed from when you were a child to now or has it stayed the same? Join in on the conversation on our social media pages!

We're celebrating Taylor's birthday with walking through memory lane and how she feels about turning 30. Finally, we've all officially entered a new decade with so much to look forward to! Whilst celebrating Taylor's birthday, we also celebrate International Literacy Day. We're are so passionate about books that we can't stop talking! We discuss favourite books, genres and debate paper vs electronic. Join in on the conversation on our social media pages. 

We talked about making College Decisions as a high schooler back in Episode 11, which you can listen to here. This is NOT a part two of the episode. :) We're talking about going back to school or continuing formal education as adults as all three of us have decided to do just that. We share our experiences with the different formats we've chosen, talk about different forms of learning that is popular these days and why we've decided to continue to expand our knowledge. Are you going through the same thing or thinking about applying to a program? Let us know on our social media pages!

As we celebrate Women's Equality Day on August 26th, we talk about how life is like being a women. From cultural differences to work experiences, women have been through so much. But the most important question to ask is how do we change society so that women can be equal to men? What do you think needs to be done? We also share our views on the documentary, Picture a Scientist, which you can find on Netflix.  Share your thoughts on our social media pages. 

There's so much to talk about with food that we're surprised we could fit it in one episode! We share our favourite cultural dishes, our least favourite dishes and sharing our experiences growing up with all these delicious dishes. Share your favourite cultural dishes on our social media pages! 

We've all been through it and we're all still going through the pandemic. So we're exploring how our relationships were pre-pandemic and during the pandemic. Have they changed? Have they stayed the same? Have you dropped some, unintentionally?  Or was it intentional? Like many, we all tried different things to connect with the people we love the most during the pandemic and we were able to learn more about each other than we did in the years we've been friends. So take a listen and share your experiences on our social media pages. 

In our traditional potluck ways, we are actually in the same room for this episode! We're talking about US politics, history and so much more while having wine and chips. Join us as jump through several topics as we reflect on America with the upcoming Fourth of July celebrations, discuss patriotism vs nationalism and throw a little bit of COVID discussion in there too. 

We're honoring all the fathers and father figures on this episode. We also talk about the relationships we've had with our fathers' and father figures and how it has affected us growing up.  Different from our Influential Women episode, we talk about the fathers in and out of our lives. Whether you have a good or bad relationship, we're acknowledging and thanking those who have been there for us since the beginning! 

In this episode, we're celebrating Amanda's 30th birthday! Find out what she plans to do to celebrate it. We also have fun trying to guess each other's personality types in three different personality tests: Enneagram, 16 Personalities and DISC. We had so much fun trying to figure out each other's type and we think this would be a fun way to learn about your friends too! Though not all personality tests are accurate, we still had a great time learning about each other. Share your findings on our social media pages! 

For Mother's Day, we spoke to the wonderful women in our lives. In every episode, we share different cultures and perspectives, but today's episode is where we have seen the most differences thus far. We spoke to Amanda's and Taylor's moms, sharing their favorite stories and learning how they grew up in their culture, the relationships they had with their mothers and how it affected how they raised their children. Amanda's mom shares an amazing story of growing up in the projects and achieving a better life for her and her family; Taylor shares her history, explaining that her mom is really her aunt since her biological mother passed away when she was just a baby and Justine's shares memories and how she's been coping without her mother, who passed away last year. Whether you have a great relationship, bad relationship or somewhere in between with your mother or mother figure, make sure you tell them how much you appreciate and love them. Don't forget to continue the conversation on our social media pages. Happy Mother's Day!

Joining our conversation in this episode are mental health experts and hosts of HeartsChat: Erica Johnson, MFT and Akilah Robinson, LMFT. In many cultures, and especially in ours, mental health isn't discussed or widely recognized. Akilah and Erica share their journey to becoming therapists, being therapists during the pandemic and best practices to start thinking about own mental health and self care. Have you thought about your own mental health? Do you have a self care routine? Take the time to think about your mental health today and take care of you!

In honor of National Siblings Day, we invite some of our siblings to join us on the podcast. We'd like to introduce you to Malori, Taylor's sister; Cristina, Amanda's sister; and Anthony, Justine's brother. We share our favorite or, depending how you look at it, embarrassing stories; good and bad qualities; and reflect on our relationships with them. What type of relationship do you have with your sibling? Are you really close, very distant or somewhere in the middle?  What type of relationship would you like to have in the future?  Apologies in advanced for the poor sound quality in this episode. Technology was not on our side! 

Join us as we continue the conversation about our cultures' beauty standards. If you didn't listen to Beauty Standards Part 1, make sure to listen to that first! In Part 2, we reflect on inner and outer beauty, our beauty evolution and wrap up with advice to our younger self. If you're feeling the pressures of your culture's beauty standards, we know exactly how you're feeling. We hope these two episodes can take the pressure off and help you feel beautiful just the way that you are. 

What are the beauty standards in your culture? Being women, we are constantly pressured to fit these beauty standards that affect us in many ways that we don't realize until later on in life. We reflect on those cultural beauty standards and how it has affected us through the years. Beauty is such a big topic for us, that we had to break it into two episodes. Make sure to check back next week for Beauty Standards Part 2. In the meantime, make sure to join the conversation on social media. Let us know your culture's beauty standards and how it has affected you. 

We are happy to have another good friend on the podcast, Tiffany Kodare! We know preparing for college can be daunting and we don't provide any tips on this episode (sorry, not sorry). But maybe you can learn a few things from our experience as we share what we wish we knew before making those college choices. We also discuss how involved our families were in the decision making process from choosing a school to choosing a major; financial concerns; and the type of experience we wanted when picking a college.  What factors did you think about when picking a college? Make sure to continue the conversation on our social media pages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Hollywood Rom-Com. Star-crossed lovers. Love at first sight. These are things we DON'T talk about in our this episode. With our first podcast guest, Jon Johnson, we talk about love in different forms other than what society tells us what love is. Join us in this perspective on love, our love language, the love we experience in our own family and culture, and how we feel about love in general, all while enjoying some high school memories with Jon Johnson. Continue the conversation by letting us know what type of love do you give and like to receive. Here are the 8 Different Types of Love and the 5 Love Languages we spoke about in the show. 

Recorded at different times, Justine shares her experience living in Los Angeles and then moving to London. We also talk about cultural differences between New Jersey, Los Angeles and London; get side tracked with future living accommodations and Nike; and reflect on how our friendship has survived when we're on opposite sides of the country and now on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Have you had this experience with your friends and/or family? How is it being away from them? Share your experience on our social media pages!

What a crazy year it has been already!  Now that America has sworn in it's new president, we reflect on Election Day, current events and the new administration. We also promise we won't talk your ears off about elections for another two years. Unless something interesting happens, of course. Let us know your thoughts on the election, the new administration and what you are looking forward to for the next four years. 

Cheers to Justine turning 30! We talk about her birthday festivities and favorite birthday memories. Also in the episode, we talk about some American traditions we missed out on and/or didn't understand when we were growing up. Traditions include summer camp, punishing children, family trees and more. We reflect on those traditions comparing to what we grew up with instead. Then we asked ourselves, did we wish we grew up with those traditions we didn't get to experience? Join in on the conversation on our social media pages! Let us know what you grew up with and what you missed out on. 

Last holiday of the year! Who's ready for the new year? We talk about our cultural traditions, other traditions that fascinate us and we digress a bit on societal expectations. Off topic, we know, but  we tend to do that...a lot! Most importantly, we reflect on the year and how we're moving forward for 2021. 

Continuing on with the holiday season, we're talking about our Christmas traditions. Of course there is one Grinch in our group, can you guess who? Who in your group is the Christmas fanatic and who's the Grinch? Join us as we talk about Santa, traditions, decorations, food and more. Justine briefly shows her vulnerable side talking about her mother as it's the first Christmas without her mother. Let us know if you're looking forward to Christmas and what traditions are you excited about. Share your traditions with us on our social media pages. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram: United As Friends.  

Though we are a diverse group of friends, we haven't had many conversations about race, especially our own race. With all the current racial tension and issues going on, we joined in on the conversation. In this episode, we discuss how connected we feel to our ethnicity, how it has affected our upbringing, personal and professional lives, media representation and more. When was the last time you had conversations with your friends about your ethnicity and the effects of it? What are the similarities or differences? If you haven't, we encourage everyone to have healthy conversations with friends so we all can appreciate everyone's culture and ethnicity. Let's continue the conversation online. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Here are some of the resources we used and you can use them to help start that conversation: A Teaching Tolerance Guide, Discussing Race, Racism and Other Difficult Topics with StudentsCulture Appreciation vs. Cultural Appropriation: Why it MattersChapter 7: The Many Dimensions of Hispanic Racial Identity A History: The Construction of Race and Racism Many Black and Asian Americans Say They Have Experienced Discrimination Amid the COVID-19 Outbreak 'A Chosen Exile': Black People Passing in White AmericaThe Trouble with 'Passing' for Another Race/Sexuality/Religion...

It's the holiday season! Up first is our least favorite: Thanksgiving. But let's be honest, who's favorite holiday is Thanksgiving? Are you looking forward to Thanksgiving?  We talk about our family traditions and our "tradition" of potlucks. We really enjoy potlucks!  What are your family traditions? Does yours fall in line with the American Thanksgiving tradition? Plus, we spotlight Amanda's random tangents.  

As the 2020 election draws closer, we reflect how the conversation of politics have or have not been influential in our relationships with our families, friends and our culture. 

In our debut episode, we ask ourselves, "How in the hell did we become friends?" Being from diverse backgrounds, we share our friendship origin story, discuss cultural differences and what we think about friendships in general.