This week, we’re diving into a conversation that hits right in the heart of what it means to belong.
Our guest, Jewell Hohman, is a certified friendship and self-confidence coach who’s helping people around the world rediscover joy, connection, and the courage to be themselves no filters, no pretending.
📅 This episode drops Tuesday, October 28, 2025, at 3 AM ET — “Jewell on Friendship and Mental Health: Building Real Connection in a Lonely World.”
Friendship isn’t just something we stumble into, t’s something we can learn, build, and heal through. Jewell breaks down the art and science of real friendship: how to move beyond loneliness, let go of performative “I’m fine” masks, and create the kind of relationships that hold you up when life falls apart.
She’s not preaching theory, she’s lived this. From growing up in emotional chaos to teaching at universities and building her own social prescribing clinic, Jewell shows how connection can be medicine.
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🔥 What’s Up with G-Rex & Dirty Skittles
This week, our hearts are heavy and full as we think about food insecurity.
We’re not here to get political (you know us, that’s not our lane), but we are here to be human. And right now, a lot of humans are about to hurt.
On Saturday, November 1st, SNAP benefits, the program that helps millions of Americans put food on the table, will not be distributed. It’s temporary, but it’s landing at the worst possible time: right before the holidays, as the weather turns cold, and when so many families are already stretched thin.
For those of us lucky enough not to worry about where our next meal is coming from, this might not hit home right away. But for folks in rural Upstate New York (hey, it’s G-Rex here 👋), food deserts are real. Grocery stores are few, gas prices are high, and local food pantries are already running low. Meanwhile, in Marietta, Georgia, where Dirty Skittles is holding it down, the shelves at urban food banks are thinning fast, and the need keeps growing.
We’re not here to tell you what to do, we’re here to ask you to care.
Here are a few small ways we can all make a real impact while we wait for benefits to resume:
🍲 Feed the streets, not just the trick-or-treaters. If you’re giving out candy this Halloween, toss in some shelf-stable foods like granola bars, fruit cups, peanut butter crackers, or instant soup cups. (The kids might not squeal, but their parents might cry with gratitude.)
🏪 Support your local food pantry. Most pantries are begging for shelf-stable items like pasta, rice, canned tuna, soups, and baby formula. Many also accept toiletries and hygiene products, which SNAP doesn’t cover.
🚗 Do a doorstep drop. If you know a neighbor, vet, or senior who’s struggling, leave a small bag of groceries anonymously. Dignity matters, kindness can be quiet.
💵 Donate if you can — local first. Even $10 to your town’s food pantry goes further than you think. If you’re not sure where to start, Feeding America has a zip-code search for local banks: www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank.
🧤 Volunteer time, not just money. Food banks need people to stock, deliver, and serve. A few hours sorting boxes can literally feed hundreds.
We’re not politicians. We’re just two women who believe that when times get hard, community gets stronger.
If you do decide to help, whether it’s dropping off food, donating, or simply spreading awareness, let us know. We’d love to give you a shout-out on the show and on socials. Because when you care out loud, it ripples.
💭 How are you helping your community this week?
🔥 Special Shout-Out: Women Supporting Women
🌟 Meet Angie Hawkins
Angie Hawkins is an Inner Glow Coach who helps high-achieving women stop dimming their light to be loved—and learn to love themselves so deeply the world can’t help but reflect it back.
She works with women who’ve done therapy, read the books, tried the spiritual path, but still feel like something’s missing. Through deep inner work and identity transformation, she helps them break the cycle of not feeling “enough,” so they can experience real love, confidence, and peace without changing who they are.
She’s also the author of Running in Slippers, a raw and vulnerable memoir about finding resilience after emotional rock bottom.
✨ Ready to find your glow? Book a free Find Your Glow session or join her next Unshakable You masterclass to start shining from the inside out. 🔗 https://www.runninginslippers.com/
💬 Mental Health Quote of the Week
“Friendship isn’t about getting everyone to like you — it’s about finding the people who make you feel safe enough to be real.” — Jewell Hohman
Use this week’s worksheet to reflect on how you show up in your friendships, where you feel seen, where you hold back, and how to create more emotional safety in your connections.
🎤 Episode Spotlight:
Jewell on Friendship and Mental Health
“Connection isn’t extra it’s essential.”
That’s the heartbeat of this week’s conversation with friendship coach Jewell Hohman, who’s redefining what it means to build real connection in a world that often feels disconnected by default.
Jewell opens up about growing up in a household filled with emotional abuse and learning, the hard way, that friendship isn’t about earning love through people-pleasing, it’s about finding safety, trust, and truth.
After years of social anxiety and isolation, she turned her pain into purpose, helping others move from loneliness to belonging. Through her research and coaching practice, Connection with Jewell, she teaches the “three necessities” of friendship meaningful moments, consistency, and vulnerability, and shows how these small acts rebuild our emotional lives piece by piece.
She also shares how the pandemic deepened loneliness on college campuses, what we can learn from social prescribing programs in the U.K., and how she’s bringing that model to the U.S. to help people reconnect with community through dance classes, art, and shared interests.
This episode is a heartfelt roadmap for anyone who’s ever thought, “Why don’t I have close friends?” or “What’s wrong with me?” Jewell reminds us that nothing’s wrong with us, we just haven’t been taught how to connect.
Her story is equal parts vulnerability and hope: from hospitalization and loneliness to laughter, purpose, and a thriving global community built on friendship that actually heals.
🧩 From the Conversation
💬 The heartbeat of this episode Jewell’s story reminds us that friendship isn’t small talk, it’s soul work. From childhood loneliness and people-pleasing to rebuilding her own sense of belonging, she shows us that connection can be the most powerful form of healing. Real friendship isn’t about constant contact or curated perfection. It’s about showing up as your unfiltered self and trusting that’s enough.
🫂 A quote that stuck with us “Friendship isn’t about getting everyone to like you, it’s about finding the people who make you feel safe enough to be real.” — Jewell Hohman
🎙️ Real Talk from Us “When Jewell said friendship is a skill we can learn, it hit home. She took something we all struggle with, loneliness, and turned it into a roadmap back to ourselves.” — G-Rex
“Jewell reminded me that vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s the language of connection. Laughter, honesty, silliness… those are healing, too.” — Dirty Skittles
📓 Reflection Prompts to Sit With • Where do you feel most emotionally safe, and with whom? • What friendship could use a little more consistency or vulnerability? • How can you show up for someone this week without trying to fix them? • What’s one wall you’ve built around connection that you’re ready to soften?
🌱 Gentle Reminder You don’t have to be the perfect friend to be a good one. Friendship isn’t performance, it’s presence. And the smallest act of reaching out can change someone’s day, maybe even their life.
👥 Meet Our Guest — Jewell Hohman
Jewell Hohman is a certified friendship and self-confidence coach, speaker, and soon-to-be clinical social worker. She helps people around the world create meaningful friendships, overcome high-functioning social anxiety, and rediscover joy in being themselves.
As the founder of Connection with Jewell, she teaches the practical tools for belonging, vulnerability, and emotional wellness — blending science, compassion, and lived experience. Her mission: to help 10,000+ people build real friendships, not performative ones.
She’s also pioneering a social prescribing clinic model in the U.S., connecting people not just to care, but to community.
Why she matters: Jewell has lived the loneliness she now helps others overcome. Her story is proof that we can rebuild connection from the ground up — one honest conversation at a time.
Loneliness isn’t a flaw — it’s a signal for connection.
The foundation of friendship is emotional safety.
Consistency + vulnerability = closeness.
Boundaries don’t block love; they protect it.
Friendship can heal what isolation harms.
💪 Actionable Steps
Text or call a friend just to say hi — not to plan, not to fix, just to connect.
Notice where you feel “performative” and soften instead of striving.
Reflect on your “triangle”, acquaintances, friends, confidants. Who might you move up a level?
Reconnect with one old friend — even a short message counts.
Join one local activity where shared interest builds instant belonging.
💬 Listener Engagement
Did this episode make you rethink what friendship means? Reply to this email or tag us on IG @grex_and_dirtyskittles with your favorite takeaway — we’d love to hear where connection is showing up in your life.
⭐ Subscribe, Rate & Review
If this conversation reminded you how much we need each other, take a second to subscribe, rate, and review the show on your favorite platform:
Your words help more people find these conversations — and remind us why this work matters.
❤️ Closing Remarks
This episode reminded us that friendship isn’t a luxury. It’s oxygen.
We talk a lot about mental health on this show, the messy kind, the quiet kind, the “I don’t even know how to say this out loud” kind. And what Jewell reminded us is that we don’t have to go through any of it alone.
Real friendship isn’t about constant sunshine or perfectly timed check-ins. It’s about having someone who lets you show up exactly as you are , unshowered, unfiltered, undone, and says, “You’re still enough.”
If you’re in a lonely season right now, we see you. We’ve been there. And we promise, this isn’t the end of your story, it’s just the in-between. The friends you haven’t met yet, the laughter that’s still waiting for you, the softness you’ll grow into — it’s all ahead.
So send the text. Make the call. Invite someone over for coffee, soup, or silence. Be the safe place you wish you had. Because when we show up for each other, we start to heal the world, one honest conversation at a time.
With love (and a whole lot of gratitude), G-Rex & Dirty Skittles Changing the way we talk about mental health — one real, brave, beautifully human convo at a time.
G-Rex & Dirty Skittles
It's ok to be not ok, just make sure you're talking to someone
