August 7, 2024 • 40 mins
So many of us have been raised to prioritize romantic partnership and finding “the one,” over anything else, including some of our other, long-standing platonic relationships. Today we’re exploring the idea of Decentering Romance — a concept you may have seen on your social media feeds — which asks us to explore what it looks like to seek romantic desire without letting it push out the other important relationships in our lives.
Joining me for this discussion is licensed marriage and family therapist, Tiffany Hall. Tiffany is a coach, speaker, and writer based in the Philadelphia area who is passionate about working with women to understand the roles they play in their relationships and how it impacts who they are. During our conversation, we discussed the pitfalls of making romantic love the center of your life, how you can still maintain your friendships when dating, and the cultivation of family dynamics that honor non-romantic life partners.
About the Podcast
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
Resources & Announcements
Grab your copy of Sisterhood Heals.
Fighting For Our Friendship by Danielle Bayard Jackson
The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center by Rhaina Cohen
Where to Find Tiffany
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for Session three seventy one of the
Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our
conversation after worry from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I'm Tiffany Hall, and I'm on the Therapy for Black
Girls podcast. I'm in session today unpacking what it means
to to center romance in your life.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So many of us have been raised to prioritize romantic
partnership and finding the one over anything else, including some
of our other long standing platonic relationships. Today we're exploring
the idea of decentering romance, a concept you may have
seen on your social media feeds, which asks us to
explore what it looks like to seek romantic desire without
(01:47):
letting it push out the other important relationships in our lives.
Joining me for this conversation is licensed marriage and family
therapist Tiffany Hall. Tiffany is a coach, speaker, and writer
based in the Philadelphia area who's passionate about working with
women to understand the roles they play in their relationships
and how it impacts who they are. During our conversation,
(02:08):
we discussed the fitfalls of making romantic love the censor
of your life, how you can still maintain your friendships
when dating, and the cultivation of family dynamics that honor
non romantic life partners. If something resonates with you while
enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media
using the hashtag TVG in session or join us over
(02:30):
in the sister circles to talk more about the episode.
You can join us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls
dot Com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for
joining us today, Tiffany.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Thank you doctor Joy for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, I'm very excited to chat with you about a
topic that I feel like has been blowing up all
over social media, lots of conversations. I feel like I've
seen lots of articles, and so we're here today to
talk about desensoring romance. So I wonder if you could
just get us started with a definition of what does
it mean for us to de sense or romance in
our lives?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, that's a great question. So dissenting romance is really
about taking romantic love and romantic relationships out of the
center of our lives. In the social hierarchy, especially for women,
we tend to focus very heavily on the pursuit and
maintenance of romantic relationships, and so dissenting romantic love is
really about finding other forms of love to put at
(03:27):
the center.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Got it? And what kinds of conversations have you been
having with clients about this?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Oh? Man, there's been a lot of radical acceptance happening.
Most of the people that I work with are women,
and most people in my personal life who I have
my closest intimate relationships with are also with women. So
I've been talking with a lot of women about just
how much emotional labor is required of them, and a
lot of times that labor doesn't always result in fulfillment
(03:54):
with satisfaction or even sort of equal amounts of labor.
So a lot of when men are feeling like they're
giving a lot and not getting much in return, and
what they do get in return is usually only good
for short term gratification. The companionship, sex, you know, going
out on dates, we love that kind of stuff. But
you know, a lot of women are looking for a
(04:15):
long term partner who has emotional intelligence, who has humility,
who has all of the things that we tend to
associate with feminine qualities but are not really encouraged in men.
So women that are looking for male partners often are
not finding partners who are compatible because of that.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
And when you say radical acceptance, what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, I'm in hearing for a lot of women, especially
those who are like me in mid to late thirties,
who are wanting to have families, who want to get married,
and are finding out that perhaps that may not happen
for them, and not because they're lacking at all in
terms of their own quality. A lot of these women
are very intelligent, very accomplished, and have thriving social lives,
but when it comes to finding a romantic partner. It
(04:59):
just seems like there's a lot of challenges, and so
a lot of women are choosing to be single, either
permanently or are choosing to find other sort of forms
of community, you know, focusing on platonic friendship. I've heard
of single moms women in with other single moms and
having sort of a family unit based around that. And
also there are some people who realize that perhaps their
(05:21):
idea of what a happy, fulfilled life may look like
is not going to be centered around marriage and family,
and that's weird for some people.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, I mean, so much of our socialization. I'm sure
we're going to get into this, but so much of
our socialization and like what we've taught, and like it
feels like you do all of these steps and like
this is supposed to be the last thing to check off.
And so it does feel like there is a reckoning
with is that something that I really wanted in the
first place? And if so, how might I have to
(05:49):
grieve the idea that this might not happen exactly.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
There's a lot of grief involved because, yeah, a lot
of us, we've been conditioned to want this and to
pursue it since we were little girls watching Disney movies
and reading fairy tales. So we're thinking, this is what
is promised to us, And when you get into adulthood
and you start dating and going through all the challenges
that come with that, we realize that, yeah, it's not
the way they told us it was.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Going to be.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Got it. So I'm curious, Tiffany, did this become a
specialty for you? Just through conversations with your clients, are like,
how did this become a real passion and kind of
specialty for you?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I think this really started to really hit for me
in the last i want to say, eighteen months, just
through my own personal experience seeing what a lot of
my girlfriends were going through, seeing a lot also a
lot of women that I work with and my psychotherapy
and coaching practices go through, and I was like, Yeah,
a lot of women are working hard in order to
pursue this, but don't really seem happy once they have it.
(06:46):
And I realized that perhaps we're putting too much emphasis
on this being the thing that completes our lives. A
lot of women are oftentimes finding themselves in situations where
they're unhappy or they're experiencing harm and they're holding on
because they feel like, this is what I'm supposed to do.
I need to have romantic partnership in order for my
life to be complete and whole, and that sometimes can
(07:09):
cause us to compromise on our standards and our boundaries,
and that's when it can get really painful.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Tiffany, do you think that this is solely a function
of socialization or is there more going on with the
priority we tend to have for romantic relationships.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah. I think it's probably a little bit of nature,
a little bit of nurture. Biologically, we are urged to procreate,
and so that requires us to seek a mate. But
I think where the challenges come is when we put
a lot of the focus of the relationship on how
we feel about a person and wanting all those romantic
(07:46):
feelings that we see in movies, wanting to find our
happily ever after, our prints charming, and so that tends
to sort of I think up the ante a bit
when it comes to the biological component. Yeah, we want
to have children, we want to pro create, but also
women were supposed to want this grand love story.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We want to feel like a princess.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Because I know a lot of us grew up, we
had maybe a little princess stage, and part of that
is wanting to be rescued by a prince and wanting
to be saved. And I think that socialization doesn't stop,
it continues throughout the lifespan. When we're in middle school
and high school, we're thinking about how attractive we are
and our bodies are changing, We're thinking about how we
(08:25):
look to males and how male attention does provide social currency.
And then we get to adulthood and think about even
all the media that we consume. I remember growing up
in high school watching things like Sex and the City
and Girlfriends, and I thought about just how much time
they spent just talking about men and relationships, and it
just started to feel like that is a thing that
(08:47):
women do. We just sit and commiserate over all of
our relationship and dating problems. There's nothing else going on
in our lives besides that. And it makes me feel
like as women were really not encouraged to develop a
sense of self. Always about how we can create and
nurture relationships with other people, But how about that relationship
that we have with ourselves?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
What about that?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And Tiffany, would you say that this is different in
queer communities, and like you because I'm thinking about like
the developmental stages that you're talking about that women who
are attracted to men have. Can you say more about
like what that looks like for people who are queer.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I work with a
lot of queer folks, and it's completely different for them.
For a lot of queer folks, unfortunately, you know, especially
those who are thirties and up, didn't have as much
representation and media for what a normal queer relationship was
supposed to look like. So a lot of them were
kind of figuring it out on their own. But I
think that gives them a lot more freedom to not
(09:41):
follow the script that we've all kind of have been given.
And I've seen a lot of them have again those
different sort of family structures. Some of them they may
all live in a house together multiple generations, or they
have multiple families, and so there's not so much this
emphasis on maintaining this traditional nuclear model, which to be honest,
doesn't really work for a lot of us black and
(10:01):
brown folks. We are historically culturally very communal. Living in
these sort of individual families is very much a western
and very modern way of looking at family, the whole
mom staying at home, dad leaves the house, and there's
two point five kids and a dog. Yeah, a lot
of families don't look like that, and that was an
ideal in the fifties. But we also know what's going on.
In the fifties, a lot of black women didn't fit
(10:24):
in that. We were still working outside of the home.
So a lot of what we're we're seeking in terms
of romantic partnership is that nuclear family ideal.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
That one doesn't.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Fit everyone, and economically it's pretty difficult to maintain in
these times. So what we're I think going to see
is there's going to be a shift in how we
look at romance and dating and family in these coming years.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, and I feel like we are already starting. I mean,
I think that's a part of what we're having this
conversation and why you're doing the work that you're doing.
Can you talk a little bit about some of those
shifts you already mentioned, moms getting together, creating their own
ideas of what family looks like. Can you talk more
about some of those things you see.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, I do think we're going to see a lot
more of those sorts of setups where you have these
kind of matriarchal communities where you have women coming together
and providing care amongst each other's children. That's something I
think a lot of mothers would benefit from. I think
we're going to see more people living with non biological
family roommates.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I know.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I work with people who are also in non monogamous
and poly relationships, and sometimes they may live with a
primary and secondary partner and all of their children. And
so I think it's nice to be able to see
the different types of family structures because I think the
way that we've been taught to sort of idealize this
nuclear family, it causes us to feel more isolated. So
(11:40):
having more people outside just the romantic context really benefits
the community as a whole. But I think a lot
of us still want that ideal mom, dad, kids in
the house, and that I think is what keeps some
people stuck. And not to say that's not impossible to obtain,
but it's difficult, and again it could be very isolating
(12:02):
for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of
the subtle ways we might be centering romantic relationships in
our lives without even really recognizing that we're doing it.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Oh yeah, that's a good question, because we all do this,
and you likely will continue to do it because again,
this is reinforced pretty much everywhere, just like the social
media is a big way we spend a lot of time.
You're consuming content about relationships. You know, maybe you're somebody
who likes to read a lot of information about dating
and romance, focusing so much on finding partners, or even
(12:36):
on the other side of that, there's a lot of
people who take in resources about I've seen narcissists, narcissistic abuse,
and recovering from relationships with narcissists, and so people often
think that romantic relationships, I think are something that are
supposed to be hard, and there's a lot of support
even in the mental health field for recovering from romantic
(12:57):
relationships and not in the same way as familial in
platonic relationships, which can be just as complex, but we
don't provide the same support. We normalize hardship in romantic partnership,
and so I think that we may be seeing other
types of couples therapy. I've seen some therapists now do
something called friendship therapy, which I think is great, and
(13:19):
I think that for women, a lot of us have
experienced much more fulfillment and stability in our platonic relationships,
especially those with other women, than in a lot of
our romantic relationships. But we don't put sometimes as much
effort into those because we're taught like, the romantic ones
are the ones that matter, Right, that's what's going to
prove to us that we are worthy human beings. So
we put a lot of emphasis there, But again, we
(13:40):
don't always get the same reward.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Right, Right, That's definitely the case. And I feel like
another stereotype that often, it feels like, perpetuates women's relationships.
Is this idea that you can fall off the map
when you're dating. Right, So, is this understanding of, Okay,
there'll be a couple of months where maybe we won't
hear from you, and like you kind of are putting
all of this investment into a romantic relationship. Can you
(14:03):
talk about like how to navigate that with friends? Like
what are some tips that you have for like how
do you maintain your friendships while you're dating.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I'm so glad you brought that up, because that's probably
one of the easiest ways to decenter romantic love is
to do kind of what you are mentioning. Is when
you get into a new relationship, you start dating someone,
don't drop your friends. And I know so many women
I know at one point I have done this in
my past, will get into relationship, go excited about this person,
and they forget like you had a whole crew before
(14:33):
you met this person. And those are the ones that
had to probably still be there after this thing crashes
and burns, because we know they're not always going to
be permanent. And so I tell people that you can date.
There's nothing wrong with dating. You can date and still
decenter romance, but still make sure that you're pouring into
your life that was already existing. Still spend time with friends,
don't cancel on your friends to hang out with your
(14:54):
new boot. Make sure that you are fitting this person
into your life versus fitting life around this person. And again,
I think as women were often encouraged to do that,
to abandon our sense of self, our hobbies, our interests,
our pre existing relationships to make this romantic relationship work.
And I know some people may not want to hear this,
but most of these relationships are going to end. They're
(15:17):
not all going to lead to marriage, and even those
that lead to marriage are not permanent either, So you
have to make sure that you are maintaining a life
that is separate from that relationship.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
More from our conversation after the break, but first a
quick snippet of what's coming next week on TVG.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
I think you can't support someone without understanding them. In
order for you to support, you need to understand. So
just taking the time out to understand them and even
asking them a question like okay, so can you tell
me a little bit more about your beliefs? And a
lot of Muslims are open to answering questions. I've got
a work colleague that literally asks me if you question
every single day?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So why have you as a hitard? Do you have
a home? So what do you eat?
Speaker 4 (16:00):
And I love it because I know that it's not
coming from a place of ignorance, It's just coming from
a place of pure understanding. She just wants to understand. So, yeah,
take the interest in just understanding your league.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
What suggestions would you have for somebody who is maybe
feeling neglected by a friend who has started putting all
of their energy into a romantic relationship, like how might
they broach the conversation with the friend? What suggestions would
you have?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
It can be very uncomfortable conversation to have, but likely
a necessary one. This is where people can practice good
communication and their friendships. And you're gonna have to be honest,
honest in a loving, tactful way. Of course, we don't
want to approach anybody in acusatory way and.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Say you did.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
That's gonna put them on defense. So I encourage folks
if you're feeling neglected by a friend to tell them like, hey,
I've noticed we haven't hung out in a while, we
haven't talked in a while. I really enjoy spend time
with you. It really is important to me that we
have quality time. Let them know that you are still
a priority in their life and that you want.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
To spend time with them.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
So maybe suggests, Hey, why don't we go and grab
dinner sometime next week? It's given an invitation that opens
the door. And also, if you're feeling hurt or frustrated,
or you know, and whatever as a result of feeling neglected,
you can be honest about that too. I feel hurt
because I feel like you're spending more time with new Boo,
and you know, I hardly see you anymore, and that
(17:34):
may make this friend not feel good to hear, but
that's the way that we build intimacy is being honest
about our feelings.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
In Tiffany, this feels like it ties back to a
point you made a little while ago around like all
of the resources and conversations we have about how to
navigate difficult conversations in romantic relationships, and like it's almost
expected that there is this work that happens in romantic relationships,
but we don't tend to think about it friendships. And
what you're suggesting is that you do sometimes have to
(18:03):
have awkward, difficult conversations even with friendship. Can you say
more about, like how to unlearn some of those ideas
that there doesn't need to be any work in friendships?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Oh yeah, there's a great book that I just read
about this, called Fighting for Our Friendships. That's by Daniel
bay Or Jackson, who's a black woman who's also a
friendship coach, and she gives some wonderful tips, but she
talks about how important it is for us to sort
of bring the same expectations that we have with romantic
partners because oftentimes we saying, oh, I need someone sort
of communicate more, I need them to text me back,
(18:36):
and we'll just fall off when it comes to our friends.
And that's because I think sometimes we expect our girlfriends
to sort of sometimes be low maintenance because we think
that we are, you know, and that's not the case.
We have to talk and have uncomfortable conversations or we're
not going to be able to grow. She also talks
about as women, we tend to expect more emotional labor
(18:56):
from our friends than we do from our romantic partners,
and I think think that can cause a disservice to
our friends because sometimes we respect them to do a
lot more and be forgiving of a lot more. But
also I think as women were often discouraged from handling
conflict because we feel like we got to be nice,
we have to be agreeable, we have to be good girls,
and that sometimes means swallowing our real feelings and not expressing.
(19:18):
But with our friends, that should be who you should
feel the safest to be honest with, to be your
authentic self. So if you feel a little bit apprehensive
about having these uncomfortable conversations, just think about the fact
that anyone who truly values you in their relationship with
you will be willing to listen and receive what you
have to say.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
But if it's uncomfortable and.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
They may be a little bit mad about it, but
that wouldn't be a relationship ender, And if it is,
that says a lot about the quality of the friendship
as it was. But I highly recommend this book. I
think it gives a lot of great tips on how
to have difficult conversations and also normalizes the fact that, yeah,
we need to be putting the same effort into our friendships.
I actually even encourage going to friendship therapy. Yes, something
(20:00):
that you feel like you can't work out amongst yourselves,
going to a therapist is a great way to get
some skills to enhance the quality of friendship. So we
have to get out of the space of feeling like
we have to handle it ourselves. And if we're having
conflict in friendship, that's not an indictment on us as people.
That's just part of human relationships. There's going to be
conflict at times. That's normal.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Tiffany, you started this conversation talking about some of the
conversations you're having with clients around the emotional labor that
it feels like they're doing and it doesn't feel like proportionate,
like it doesn't feel reciprocated. But I also hear you
saying that we sometimes expect our friends to do more
emotional labor. So can you talk about like the converging
of those worlds and like what emotional labor even look
(20:41):
like in friendships.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
So the biggest one, and I know I've done this,
I've also been on the receiving end of this is
when we vent about a stressful relationship, so we want
to vent about what he did or didn't do, and
sometimes that can happen several times, and again we're often
feeling like that's just what women do when they talk
on we have out, we can miserate. But also over
time listening to that, you're providing emotional labor to someone
(21:06):
when you're listening to them vent about all of the
challenges in the relationship. And sometimes these things they're venting
about are very toxic and sometimes traumatic, So you could
also be exposing your friends to vicarious trauma. And the
intention often is not to cause harm. When we're doing this,
we're basically trying to feel validated. We're trying to get
some sort of relief from whatever is causing us some distress,
(21:26):
but also have to realize that venting alone needs to
have some sort of time limit. At some point it
has to go beyond venting and into action, And we
can't have our friends be a receptacle for us to
keep trauma dumping. We're emotionally dumping when we're not ready
to actually take action ourselves. So I encourage women, you know,
it's okay to vent about relationship challenges, but also be
(21:49):
mindful about what are you realistically willing to do yourself
to get beyond those challenges. And if you have to
keep going to your friends to vent about this relationship,
then perhaps you may want to con or what role
this relationship is playing in your life because you're using
now your friends to cope.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I wonder if you can say more about like the
line between just being a friend, right, because that is
a part of friendship is kind of being available for
venting and processing emotions, which I think we tend to
do a lot as women. But where does it cross
the line to becoming trauma dumping? Like, how would you.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Know I just did a TikTok on this recently about
healthy venting versus trauma dumping, and so, first, healthy venting
is time limited. At some point, you're going to take
action so that you no longer need to vent, whether
that's going to therapy or doing something else. And also
be very mindful of the person who's on the receiving end.
Is that person feeling drained. That person may not even
(22:41):
be aware that they're being drained because of the venting.
So trauma dumping tends to have a very harmful effect
on the person who's on the receiving end because they
start to feel drained by listening and also offering advice
often to the person who's venting, and oftentimes that advice
is not taken, and so they have to keep giving advice,
and so there's a cycle with this. The other thing
is too the person that's venting, is how much space
(23:04):
are they leading for the other person in the conversation
talk about whatever they want to talk about is just
a conversation or just a monologue. And also is the
person that's venting, what other steps are they taking in
order to manage this problem? Is venting their only coping skill,
because that could be some signs of codependency or just
poor coping skills. And so I say that venting is healthy.
(23:25):
You know, we all need to do that. Sometimes it
can be helpful to have somebody to listen to us
and help us process our feelings and get a different perspective.
But at some point you have to take that venting
and what you get out of that and turn it
into action for yourself. That's not always easy to do,
but eventually you need to get there.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
So we know that these narratives that have been out
there around you know, romantic relationship kind of being the pinnacle,
these are not things that only straight women have fallen to.
Like we know it pervades all of our minds. And
so I'm thinking about even having conversations with partners about
continuing to prioritize your friends can sometimes be difficult if
they also expect that they are now the most important
(24:05):
person in your life right as opposed to being one
of many important people. So can you talk about one
suggestions for having conversations with romantic partners about the space
they occupy and the space friends occupy, and two any
red flags we should be on the lookout for when
we are navigating those kinds of conversations.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
This can be tough too, because a lot of the
dissentering romance talk is new for some people. So this
as a concept, this may not be something that people
are really familiar with, especially men. And then for people
in relationships, you maybe want to talk about this with
their partner. You want to show your partner that you
still love them, that you're not trying to demote them
in some way in your life. There's still this is
(24:44):
important to you. You're just trying to think about how
you manage your relationships in your life and that you
don't want your romantic partnership to be at the top
of the hierarchy. And that may be hard for some
partners to hear because again, traditionally, how we've been taught
to view romantic partnership, especially in CIS hetero relationships, is
(25:05):
that that's supposed to be at the center and all
your relationships come secondary to that. So that is just
what a lot of us have become accustomed to men, women,
and everyone else. This goes across gender. But if you
have a partner who's willing to talk about these things,
you may want to ask them, what does romantic love
mean to you, what place do you want it to
have in your life and have a dialogue about that
(25:27):
and asking yourself, how do I want this placeship to
fit in my life? Do I want this person to
be a part of all the areas of my life?
Do I want friends and family and this partner to
all be part of my social support together? Because some
people may have different friend groups or different sort of
partner groups that don't intersect, and that's totally fine too,
So thinking about where you want these people to land,
(25:49):
and also thinking about what do you contribute as a
friend a partner. I know a lot of times we're
looking for friends and partners, we're thinking about what they
can do for us, what they're bringing to the table.
But think about what makes you a good friend, what
makes you a good partner, And a lot of us
to be honest with ourselves about the fact whether or
not we're ready to be the kind of friend or
partner that we want. Because we say we want certain things,
(26:10):
we may not be ready for them. And so this
brings me to the red flags. If you have this
conversation and you notice that your partner or friend you're
getting defensive, which is very normal, especially when we're uncomfortable.
It may be that they're not ready to talk about
this at the moment. They may not be at a
point where they're ready to really explore this, because this
does can vary challenging to our value system. And then
(26:33):
you have to ask yourself, are you willing to still
grow this relationship if this person isn't able to meet
you where you're at, Because this is one of the
things that happens with any sort of growth, that whoever
we're in relationship with may not grow at the same
pace as we do, and so that may mean the
relationship has to end or it has to change. And
(26:54):
so if you have to be willing to let people go,
which is so difficult because we form attachments. But if
you find again, if the people in your life platonic, romantic,
or otherwise are not aligned with your value system, then
maybe trying to let those people go. And that's where
a lot of grief will come in. But grief is
very normal and it's painful, but it's something that you
(27:15):
can recover from.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
More from our conversation after the break, you mentioned Tiffany
this idea that it can be difficult for people to
have this kind of conversation because of the value system
that they have, and we know values are often shaped
by like family and religion and spirituality. Can you talk
(27:40):
about how all of those things impact our ability to
decenter romantic relationships.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Yeah, there's a lot of nuance to this, and I
will say that there is a certain privilege in decentering
romance for a lot of women, especially.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
You know, if you're a woman who has economic.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Resources, it's much easier to not have to rely on
a partner, so you can sort of opt out of
romantic partnership. And we know historically women didn't always have
this option, always have this option. Just the idea that
we can choose to be single permanently is still a
very modern concept. We're talking about maybe fifty to fifty
years out, and I think that we have to realize
(28:19):
that there's probably generations that preceded us that may think
that this whole concept is really weird. And people they
say it's like this angry feminist thing, and that's okay.
People may not get it, and that is okay. But
I think with the centering romantic love, you have to
realize that's also a marathon and not a sprint. It's
going to be an on going lifestyle adjustment. So it's
(28:40):
not like you do it for a couple of months
and then you're back out in doing things what you
did it before. It's pretty much like, this is how
I'm going to live my life. I'm going to not
have romantic love in dating and sects be the thing
that I center my social life or my life around.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I'm going to do other things.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
But that may mean I know, if it's for a
lot of women that I work with, there's a loneliness
in that because they find a lot of the women
that they're friends with center romantic love and they can
no longer relate. That can be very lonely. I get
that I've experienced it. There's a lot of women out
there that may be curious about this but may not
be ready to do it because they don't have the
social support. And so we need more communities where women
(29:21):
are dissenting romance, where they feel like they're not the
odd one out in their friend group because there's more
women who are finding fulfillment and more freedom in this.
But it's scary. It's scary because it's new, it's different, and.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Are there smaller things that we can be doing to
decenter romance as well. I mean, you've already talked about
making sure like all of your conversations with your friends
don't just focus on like okay, who redating, like what's happening?
Are the other things that are very practical for people
to kind of start the steps of de centering romance.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
So you're going out with your friends or whatever, You're
getting all dressed up, you're looking cute. You don't go
out with the intention of trying to meet somebody. Just
go out and have fun. You don't got to worry
about who you might run into or who you might meet.
It's really just about going out and living your life,
regardless of whether or not you find a partner or not.
And the other thing is too, is like I encourage
people to take breaks from social media to dessenter romance.
(30:16):
And the reason why social media is just filled with
so many images that make us feel like we're lacking,
whether that's the ways that are we look, or feeling
like we don't have enough money, or we don't have
the latest designers outfits or whatever. So social media tends
to make us feel like we have to buy more
do more and just have more in order to feel fulfilled.
(30:36):
So taking breaks, whether that's for a day or a
couple of hours, can really make a difference because you're
now one being more present in your offline life, and
you're also not being exposed to other people's lives and
playing the comparison game, because comparison is a very normal
human behavior. But also comparison, how does that quote go?
(30:58):
Comparison is a thief of joy?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, and it really is.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
You'll find yourself feeling like, man, I just don't have enough,
because yeah, there's always going to be somebody that has
more than we do of something, but focusing on that
will only make you miserable. Another book that I recommend
it claim out actually at the beginning of this year
is called The Other Significant Others by Rain and Cohen,
and she talks basically about what I was saying about
(31:22):
putting platonic love at the center.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
And there's these stories of people who.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Really have chosen their friends more so as life partners,
and they have spousanss and some of them have romantic partners,
but they're platonic friends.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Those are their people.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
And I think that book has provided a little bit
of a guide as to what our future can look
like as.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
We normalize relationships like this.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
We have a ways to go, though, But as we
see repductive rights being shipped away, as we see the
economy continue to be shaky, we're going to have to
find other ways to build community outside of romantic love.
Because romantic love one is not permanent. It's a very
shaky foundation to build any relationship on itself. So women,
we got to stretch beyondest parameters in order to really
(32:04):
build a well rounded life and support system.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Who You've talked already about some of the media portrayals
we see of women like girlfriends and sex and the
city where there tended to be a lot of conversation
around romance and like finding partners of that next stage
of life. I'm wondering if you can talk about the
impact that that has on these kinds of conversations around
these answering romance, and if you feel like there are
(32:28):
media portrayals that have done a better job of kind
of showing women as more full humans as opposed to
just kind of seeking romance.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Oh, that's a really good question.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I love that because I love pulling examples from pop
culture and so Sex and the City is something I've
been rewatching now as an adult because I was actually
I was like in high school when it was airing.
So Carrie and Big was considered to be like the
love story of Sex and the City is so watching
it now as a woman in my late thirties, it's
so horrifying because it's such a toxic dynamic. I've seen
(33:02):
a lot of content now on TikTok analyzing Sex and
the City, and I think a lot of people now realizing, yeah,
a lot of the relationships that were depicted in that show
were trash. They were not really anything to aspire to.
But we didn't have the language and that we do
now about popsic masculinity, about boundaries, all the things that
we talk about now that are more mainstream topics than
they were back in the early two thousands. But in
(33:24):
terms of like healthy relationship examples, I'm trying to think,
you know what, healthy relationships don't seem to be us
entertaining when it comes to media, So a lot of
them don't seem to get the shine. But for some reason,
the show that's come into mind right now was Insecure,
which I was a huge fan of I thought Insecure
did a great job of highlighting how one that relationships
(33:48):
at one point can be thought of as the center
of your life. But I loved how Issa really developed
so much of herself outside of her relationships, and that's
one of the things I appreciate some to the show.
It started out being sort of about her and Lawrence.
By the end of the series, she had become such
a different person, and I really wish we could have
(34:09):
got a spin off of just her journey after that,
but that probably won't happen. But I really just enjoyed
how much that show focused on the relationship between Molly
and Esa and all the other female characters, and it
wasn't just about who Lisa was dating and all the
ways that men were destroying her life. And I think
that we need more examples of that. I think we're
(34:29):
starting to see more stories being told that don't have
romance at the center. But again, I still think that
something that a lot of us are still trying to unlearn,
and that doesn't happen overnight. It does also come from
community reinforcement, and we are still receiving messaging from our advertisement,
from media, and from sometimes our own families about the
(34:50):
fact that we need to have a partner in order
it to be whole human beings.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So it's going to take some time.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, I mean, I definitely would agree with you about insecure.
We definitely covered insecure quite a lot on the podcast here,
but I definitely feel like the true love story and
insecure was among the four women, and even more so
between Molly and Lisa, Like it felt like at the
end that's kind of where we came to even though
Issa of course was the main character and we saw
her development, but I would agree that they did a
(35:16):
great job. Also, I feel like living single even at
a time when you maybe would have expected there to
be more conversation around dating, and it definitely was a
fair share of that, especially with regime right, But I
do feel like living single, we really saw them as
full humans with the running the business and family concerns.
I feel like they also did a really good job.
(35:37):
And then the third example I have that came to
mind was Meredith and Yang on Grey's Anatomy, Like I
feel like they were after Sex and the City started,
but it feels like they started like this new you're
my person kind of thing, and like this idea that
it didn't have to be a romantic partner. Yeah. So
those are three recent ones or not so recent that
I can think of.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I forgot all about Raison Aadamy because I remember I
was a huge fan of the early seasons of that show,
and that was a little bit after Text in the City.
But yeah, I remember doctor Christina Yang just how much
she wasn't willing to compromise herself and her career for
love and at that time was really something that was
refreshing to see. And I haven't forgotten that about her,
(36:19):
that character.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, yeah, she had that famous speech with Meredith because
Meredith strougled more than Christina did with this, and so
she talked about big Dreamy and him not being the
sun like you were actually the son. I just remember
that quote very vividly. I feel like, now we got
to do a rewatch to go back and watch it.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
I do.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
That was all, But there's like there's so many seasons
the grades out. I mean, I'm like probably twenty behind,
but that was they were ahead at their time. So
I think any show that really centers just the power
of intimacy of friendship, because for a lot of us,
those are some of the more sort of long lasting
relationships that we have, but we tend to sort of
cast those aside when we get our romantic partner, and
(37:00):
we got to make sure we're still nurturing those relationships
whether we're single or partnered.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
So you've already given us two great books, Fighting for
Our Friendships and the other Significant Other. Are there other
resources that you can think of that would help for
people who are kind of exploring these kinds of conversations,
So other books, podcasts, websites, like anything else you can
think of.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yes, there's a podcast by the name of Charlie's Toolbox.
She has a podcast and also Instagram and TikTok by
the same name.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
There's resources there.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
I also recommend the podcast by the same woman I
mentioned who wrote Fighting for Our Friendships. I believe the
podcast title is Friendship Forward. She's got a lot more
insight about navigating female friendship there, because a lot of
the centering romance is really going to be focusing on
friendship and really learning how to build up those relationships.
And also I have a website called The Center Romantic
(37:49):
Love where I have some resources on there. I have
a self paced course. I also have a Bechdale friendly
and media guide for those who may not be aware
if you're looking for media where it's not centered around romance.
I have some suggestions for movies and TV shows and
books to read that pass the Bechdel test. But I
also just encourage people to go back also to and
(38:10):
look over your social media feeds and think about all
the pages that you're following and how much of them
are focused on dating romance relationships. If you're interested in
decentering romantic loves, maybe you want to mute or on
follow some of those pages. That's one small way to
start is consuming less media where that is a focal point.
And I know this is hard too, because there's also
(38:31):
a business behind romantic love. But there's a whole other topic.
There's so much media coming out now. Love is Blind
and Perfect Match and all of these shows where romantic
love is made into a game and it's entertaining, but
it also perpetually some of the same sort of unhealthy
stereotypes about romantic love. So while those can be fun
to watch because I know I love me some Love
is Blind myself, maybe not watch too much of it.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
You know, perfect Well, we really appreciate you sharing all
of that with us. Tiffany, please share with us so
giving us your website, but give us any other websites
that you have and your social media handles so people
can stay connected.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
So you can find me on Instagram at This is
Tiffany Renee. You can also find me on TikTok. I'm
pretty active over there these day.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Same name.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
This is Tiffany Renee. You can also visit my website,
the Center Romanticlove dot com. It's also my coaching practice website.
And if you are in Pennsylvania and you are interested
in seeking psychotherapy services, my practice website is the Mendingspace
Therapy dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
We thank you for sharing all of those with us,
and we will be short to include those in the
show notes so people can connect with you easily. Thank
you so much for spending so much time with us today.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Thank you for having me, doctor Joy. I'm so happy
you had me on the show.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
I'm a fan.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Thank you for joining us. I'm so glad Tiffany was
able to join me for this conversation and share her expertise.
To learn more about her and her work, visit the
show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot Com slash Session
three seventy one. Don't forget to text two of your
girls right now and tell them to check out the episode.
(40:04):
If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit
our therapist directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory.
And if you want to continue digging into this topic
or just be in community with other sisters, come on
over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our
cozy corner of the Internet designed just for black women.
You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls
(40:24):
dot com. This episode was produced by Elise Ellis and
Zaia Taylor. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all
so much for joining me again this week. I look
forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Take good care.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
What's
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for Session three seventy one of the
Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our
conversation after worry from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I'm Tiffany Hall, and I'm on the Therapy for Black
Girls podcast. I'm in session today unpacking what it means
to to center romance in your life.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So many of us have been raised to prioritize romantic
partnership and finding the one over anything else, including some
of our other long standing platonic relationships. Today we're exploring
the idea of decentering romance, a concept you may have
seen on your social media feeds, which asks us to
explore what it looks like to seek romantic desire without
(01:47):
letting it push out the other important relationships in our lives.
Joining me for this conversation is licensed marriage and family
therapist Tiffany Hall. Tiffany is a coach, speaker, and writer
based in the Philadelphia area who's passionate about working with
women to understand the roles they play in their relationships
and how it impacts who they are. During our conversation,
(02:08):
we discussed the fitfalls of making romantic love the censor
of your life, how you can still maintain your friendships
when dating, and the cultivation of family dynamics that honor
non romantic life partners. If something resonates with you while
enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media
using the hashtag TVG in session or join us over
(02:30):
in the sister circles to talk more about the episode.
You can join us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls
dot Com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for
joining us today, Tiffany.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Thank you doctor Joy for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, I'm very excited to chat with you about a
topic that I feel like has been blowing up all
over social media, lots of conversations. I feel like I've
seen lots of articles, and so we're here today to
talk about desensoring romance. So I wonder if you could
just get us started with a definition of what does
it mean for us to de sense or romance in
our lives?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, that's a great question. So dissenting romance is really
about taking romantic love and romantic relationships out of the
center of our lives. In the social hierarchy, especially for women,
we tend to focus very heavily on the pursuit and
maintenance of romantic relationships, and so dissenting romantic love is
really about finding other forms of love to put at
(03:27):
the center.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Got it? And what kinds of conversations have you been
having with clients about this?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Oh? Man, there's been a lot of radical acceptance happening.
Most of the people that I work with are women,
and most people in my personal life who I have
my closest intimate relationships with are also with women. So
I've been talking with a lot of women about just
how much emotional labor is required of them, and a
lot of times that labor doesn't always result in fulfillment
(03:54):
with satisfaction or even sort of equal amounts of labor.
So a lot of when men are feeling like they're
giving a lot and not getting much in return, and
what they do get in return is usually only good
for short term gratification. The companionship, sex, you know, going
out on dates, we love that kind of stuff. But
you know, a lot of women are looking for a
(04:15):
long term partner who has emotional intelligence, who has humility,
who has all of the things that we tend to
associate with feminine qualities but are not really encouraged in men.
So women that are looking for male partners often are
not finding partners who are compatible because of that.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
And when you say radical acceptance, what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, I'm in hearing for a lot of women, especially
those who are like me in mid to late thirties,
who are wanting to have families, who want to get married,
and are finding out that perhaps that may not happen
for them, and not because they're lacking at all in
terms of their own quality. A lot of these women
are very intelligent, very accomplished, and have thriving social lives,
but when it comes to finding a romantic partner. It
(04:59):
just seems like there's a lot of challenges, and so
a lot of women are choosing to be single, either
permanently or are choosing to find other sort of forms
of community, you know, focusing on platonic friendship. I've heard
of single moms women in with other single moms and
having sort of a family unit based around that. And
also there are some people who realize that perhaps their
(05:21):
idea of what a happy, fulfilled life may look like
is not going to be centered around marriage and family,
and that's weird for some people.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, I mean, so much of our socialization. I'm sure
we're going to get into this, but so much of
our socialization and like what we've taught, and like it
feels like you do all of these steps and like
this is supposed to be the last thing to check off.
And so it does feel like there is a reckoning
with is that something that I really wanted in the
first place? And if so, how might I have to
(05:49):
grieve the idea that this might not happen exactly.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
There's a lot of grief involved because, yeah, a lot
of us, we've been conditioned to want this and to
pursue it since we were little girls watching Disney movies
and reading fairy tales. So we're thinking, this is what
is promised to us, And when you get into adulthood
and you start dating and going through all the challenges
that come with that, we realize that, yeah, it's not
the way they told us it was.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Going to be.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Got it. So I'm curious, Tiffany, did this become a
specialty for you? Just through conversations with your clients, are like,
how did this become a real passion and kind of
specialty for you?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I think this really started to really hit for me
in the last i want to say, eighteen months, just
through my own personal experience seeing what a lot of
my girlfriends were going through, seeing a lot also a
lot of women that I work with and my psychotherapy
and coaching practices go through, and I was like, Yeah,
a lot of women are working hard in order to
pursue this, but don't really seem happy once they have it.
(06:46):
And I realized that perhaps we're putting too much emphasis
on this being the thing that completes our lives. A
lot of women are oftentimes finding themselves in situations where
they're unhappy or they're experiencing harm and they're holding on
because they feel like, this is what I'm supposed to do.
I need to have romantic partnership in order for my
life to be complete and whole, and that sometimes can
(07:09):
cause us to compromise on our standards and our boundaries,
and that's when it can get really painful.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Tiffany, do you think that this is solely a function
of socialization or is there more going on with the
priority we tend to have for romantic relationships.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah. I think it's probably a little bit of nature,
a little bit of nurture. Biologically, we are urged to procreate,
and so that requires us to seek a mate. But
I think where the challenges come is when we put
a lot of the focus of the relationship on how
we feel about a person and wanting all those romantic
(07:46):
feelings that we see in movies, wanting to find our
happily ever after, our prints charming, and so that tends
to sort of I think up the ante a bit
when it comes to the biological component. Yeah, we want
to have children, we want to pro create, but also
women were supposed to want this grand love story.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We want to feel like a princess.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Because I know a lot of us grew up, we
had maybe a little princess stage, and part of that
is wanting to be rescued by a prince and wanting
to be saved. And I think that socialization doesn't stop,
it continues throughout the lifespan. When we're in middle school
and high school, we're thinking about how attractive we are
and our bodies are changing, We're thinking about how we
(08:25):
look to males and how male attention does provide social currency.
And then we get to adulthood and think about even
all the media that we consume. I remember growing up
in high school watching things like Sex and the City
and Girlfriends, and I thought about just how much time
they spent just talking about men and relationships, and it
just started to feel like that is a thing that
(08:47):
women do. We just sit and commiserate over all of
our relationship and dating problems. There's nothing else going on
in our lives besides that. And it makes me feel
like as women were really not encouraged to develop a
sense of self. Always about how we can create and
nurture relationships with other people, But how about that relationship
that we have with ourselves?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
What about that?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And Tiffany, would you say that this is different in
queer communities, and like you because I'm thinking about like
the developmental stages that you're talking about that women who
are attracted to men have. Can you say more about
like what that looks like for people who are queer.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I work with a
lot of queer folks, and it's completely different for them.
For a lot of queer folks, unfortunately, you know, especially
those who are thirties and up, didn't have as much
representation and media for what a normal queer relationship was
supposed to look like. So a lot of them were
kind of figuring it out on their own. But I
think that gives them a lot more freedom to not
(09:41):
follow the script that we've all kind of have been given.
And I've seen a lot of them have again those
different sort of family structures. Some of them they may
all live in a house together multiple generations, or they
have multiple families, and so there's not so much this
emphasis on maintaining this traditional nuclear model, which to be honest,
doesn't really work for a lot of us black and
(10:01):
brown folks. We are historically culturally very communal. Living in
these sort of individual families is very much a western
and very modern way of looking at family, the whole
mom staying at home, dad leaves the house, and there's
two point five kids and a dog. Yeah, a lot
of families don't look like that, and that was an
ideal in the fifties. But we also know what's going on.
In the fifties, a lot of black women didn't fit
(10:24):
in that. We were still working outside of the home.
So a lot of what we're we're seeking in terms
of romantic partnership is that nuclear family ideal.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
That one doesn't.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Fit everyone, and economically it's pretty difficult to maintain in
these times. So what we're I think going to see
is there's going to be a shift in how we
look at romance and dating and family in these coming years.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, and I feel like we are already starting. I mean,
I think that's a part of what we're having this
conversation and why you're doing the work that you're doing.
Can you talk a little bit about some of those
shifts you already mentioned, moms getting together, creating their own
ideas of what family looks like. Can you talk more
about some of those things you see.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, I do think we're going to see a lot
more of those sorts of setups where you have these
kind of matriarchal communities where you have women coming together
and providing care amongst each other's children. That's something I
think a lot of mothers would benefit from. I think
we're going to see more people living with non biological
family roommates.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I know.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I work with people who are also in non monogamous
and poly relationships, and sometimes they may live with a
primary and secondary partner and all of their children. And
so I think it's nice to be able to see
the different types of family structures because I think the
way that we've been taught to sort of idealize this
nuclear family, it causes us to feel more isolated. So
(11:40):
having more people outside just the romantic context really benefits
the community as a whole. But I think a lot
of us still want that ideal mom, dad, kids in
the house, and that I think is what keeps some
people stuck. And not to say that's not impossible to obtain,
but it's difficult, and again it could be very isolating
(12:02):
for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of
the subtle ways we might be centering romantic relationships in
our lives without even really recognizing that we're doing it.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Oh yeah, that's a good question, because we all do this,
and you likely will continue to do it because again,
this is reinforced pretty much everywhere, just like the social
media is a big way we spend a lot of time.
You're consuming content about relationships. You know, maybe you're somebody
who likes to read a lot of information about dating
and romance, focusing so much on finding partners, or even
(12:36):
on the other side of that, there's a lot of
people who take in resources about I've seen narcissists, narcissistic abuse,
and recovering from relationships with narcissists, and so people often
think that romantic relationships, I think are something that are
supposed to be hard, and there's a lot of support
even in the mental health field for recovering from romantic
(12:57):
relationships and not in the same way as familial in
platonic relationships, which can be just as complex, but we
don't provide the same support. We normalize hardship in romantic partnership,
and so I think that we may be seeing other
types of couples therapy. I've seen some therapists now do
something called friendship therapy, which I think is great, and
(13:19):
I think that for women, a lot of us have
experienced much more fulfillment and stability in our platonic relationships,
especially those with other women, than in a lot of
our romantic relationships. But we don't put sometimes as much
effort into those because we're taught like, the romantic ones
are the ones that matter, Right, that's what's going to
prove to us that we are worthy human beings. So
we put a lot of emphasis there, But again, we
(13:40):
don't always get the same reward.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Right, Right, That's definitely the case. And I feel like
another stereotype that often, it feels like, perpetuates women's relationships.
Is this idea that you can fall off the map
when you're dating. Right, So, is this understanding of, Okay,
there'll be a couple of months where maybe we won't
hear from you, and like you kind of are putting
all of this investment into a romantic relationship. Can you
(14:03):
talk about like how to navigate that with friends? Like
what are some tips that you have for like how
do you maintain your friendships while you're dating.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I'm so glad you brought that up, because that's probably
one of the easiest ways to decenter romantic love is
to do kind of what you are mentioning. Is when
you get into a new relationship, you start dating someone,
don't drop your friends. And I know so many women
I know at one point I have done this in
my past, will get into relationship, go excited about this person,
and they forget like you had a whole crew before
(14:33):
you met this person. And those are the ones that
had to probably still be there after this thing crashes
and burns, because we know they're not always going to
be permanent. And so I tell people that you can date.
There's nothing wrong with dating. You can date and still
decenter romance, but still make sure that you're pouring into
your life that was already existing. Still spend time with friends,
don't cancel on your friends to hang out with your
(14:54):
new boot. Make sure that you are fitting this person
into your life versus fitting life around this person. And again,
I think as women were often encouraged to do that,
to abandon our sense of self, our hobbies, our interests,
our pre existing relationships to make this romantic relationship work.
And I know some people may not want to hear this,
but most of these relationships are going to end. They're
(15:17):
not all going to lead to marriage, and even those
that lead to marriage are not permanent either, So you
have to make sure that you are maintaining a life
that is separate from that relationship.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
More from our conversation after the break, but first a
quick snippet of what's coming next week on TVG.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
I think you can't support someone without understanding them. In
order for you to support, you need to understand. So
just taking the time out to understand them and even
asking them a question like okay, so can you tell
me a little bit more about your beliefs? And a
lot of Muslims are open to answering questions. I've got
a work colleague that literally asks me if you question
every single day?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So why have you as a hitard? Do you have
a home? So what do you eat?
Speaker 4 (16:00):
And I love it because I know that it's not
coming from a place of ignorance, It's just coming from
a place of pure understanding. She just wants to understand. So, yeah,
take the interest in just understanding your league.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
What suggestions would you have for somebody who is maybe
feeling neglected by a friend who has started putting all
of their energy into a romantic relationship, like how might
they broach the conversation with the friend? What suggestions would
you have?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
It can be very uncomfortable conversation to have, but likely
a necessary one. This is where people can practice good
communication and their friendships. And you're gonna have to be honest,
honest in a loving, tactful way. Of course, we don't
want to approach anybody in acusatory way and.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Say you did.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
That's gonna put them on defense. So I encourage folks
if you're feeling neglected by a friend to tell them like, hey,
I've noticed we haven't hung out in a while, we
haven't talked in a while. I really enjoy spend time
with you. It really is important to me that we
have quality time. Let them know that you are still
a priority in their life and that you want.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
To spend time with them.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
So maybe suggests, Hey, why don't we go and grab
dinner sometime next week? It's given an invitation that opens
the door. And also, if you're feeling hurt or frustrated,
or you know, and whatever as a result of feeling neglected,
you can be honest about that too. I feel hurt
because I feel like you're spending more time with new Boo,
and you know, I hardly see you anymore, and that
(17:34):
may make this friend not feel good to hear, but
that's the way that we build intimacy is being honest
about our feelings.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
In Tiffany, this feels like it ties back to a
point you made a little while ago around like all
of the resources and conversations we have about how to
navigate difficult conversations in romantic relationships, and like it's almost
expected that there is this work that happens in romantic relationships,
but we don't tend to think about it friendships. And
what you're suggesting is that you do sometimes have to
(18:03):
have awkward, difficult conversations even with friendship. Can you say
more about, like how to unlearn some of those ideas
that there doesn't need to be any work in friendships?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Oh yeah, there's a great book that I just read
about this, called Fighting for Our Friendships. That's by Daniel
bay Or Jackson, who's a black woman who's also a
friendship coach, and she gives some wonderful tips, but she
talks about how important it is for us to sort
of bring the same expectations that we have with romantic
partners because oftentimes we saying, oh, I need someone sort
of communicate more, I need them to text me back,
(18:36):
and we'll just fall off when it comes to our friends.
And that's because I think sometimes we expect our girlfriends
to sort of sometimes be low maintenance because we think
that we are, you know, and that's not the case.
We have to talk and have uncomfortable conversations or we're
not going to be able to grow. She also talks
about as women, we tend to expect more emotional labor
(18:56):
from our friends than we do from our romantic partners,
and I think think that can cause a disservice to
our friends because sometimes we respect them to do a
lot more and be forgiving of a lot more. But
also I think as women were often discouraged from handling
conflict because we feel like we got to be nice,
we have to be agreeable, we have to be good girls,
and that sometimes means swallowing our real feelings and not expressing.
(19:18):
But with our friends, that should be who you should
feel the safest to be honest with, to be your
authentic self. So if you feel a little bit apprehensive
about having these uncomfortable conversations, just think about the fact
that anyone who truly values you in their relationship with
you will be willing to listen and receive what you
have to say.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
But if it's uncomfortable and.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
They may be a little bit mad about it, but
that wouldn't be a relationship ender, And if it is,
that says a lot about the quality of the friendship
as it was. But I highly recommend this book. I
think it gives a lot of great tips on how
to have difficult conversations and also normalizes the fact that, yeah,
we need to be putting the same effort into our friendships.
I actually even encourage going to friendship therapy. Yes, something
(20:00):
that you feel like you can't work out amongst yourselves,
going to a therapist is a great way to get
some skills to enhance the quality of friendship. So we
have to get out of the space of feeling like
we have to handle it ourselves. And if we're having
conflict in friendship, that's not an indictment on us as people.
That's just part of human relationships. There's going to be
conflict at times. That's normal.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Tiffany, you started this conversation talking about some of the
conversations you're having with clients around the emotional labor that
it feels like they're doing and it doesn't feel like proportionate,
like it doesn't feel reciprocated. But I also hear you
saying that we sometimes expect our friends to do more
emotional labor. So can you talk about like the converging
of those worlds and like what emotional labor even look
(20:41):
like in friendships.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
So the biggest one, and I know I've done this,
I've also been on the receiving end of this is
when we vent about a stressful relationship, so we want
to vent about what he did or didn't do, and
sometimes that can happen several times, and again we're often
feeling like that's just what women do when they talk
on we have out, we can miserate. But also over
time listening to that, you're providing emotional labor to someone
(21:06):
when you're listening to them vent about all of the
challenges in the relationship. And sometimes these things they're venting
about are very toxic and sometimes traumatic, So you could
also be exposing your friends to vicarious trauma. And the
intention often is not to cause harm. When we're doing this,
we're basically trying to feel validated. We're trying to get
some sort of relief from whatever is causing us some distress,
(21:26):
but also have to realize that venting alone needs to
have some sort of time limit. At some point it
has to go beyond venting and into action, And we
can't have our friends be a receptacle for us to
keep trauma dumping. We're emotionally dumping when we're not ready
to actually take action ourselves. So I encourage women, you know,
it's okay to vent about relationship challenges, but also be
(21:49):
mindful about what are you realistically willing to do yourself
to get beyond those challenges. And if you have to
keep going to your friends to vent about this relationship,
then perhaps you may want to con or what role
this relationship is playing in your life because you're using
now your friends to cope.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I wonder if you can say more about like the
line between just being a friend, right, because that is
a part of friendship is kind of being available for
venting and processing emotions, which I think we tend to
do a lot as women. But where does it cross
the line to becoming trauma dumping? Like, how would you.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Know I just did a TikTok on this recently about
healthy venting versus trauma dumping, and so, first, healthy venting
is time limited. At some point, you're going to take
action so that you no longer need to vent, whether
that's going to therapy or doing something else. And also
be very mindful of the person who's on the receiving end.
Is that person feeling drained. That person may not even
(22:41):
be aware that they're being drained because of the venting.
So trauma dumping tends to have a very harmful effect
on the person who's on the receiving end because they
start to feel drained by listening and also offering advice
often to the person who's venting, and oftentimes that advice
is not taken, and so they have to keep giving advice,
and so there's a cycle with this. The other thing
is too the person that's venting, is how much space
(23:04):
are they leading for the other person in the conversation
talk about whatever they want to talk about is just
a conversation or just a monologue. And also is the
person that's venting, what other steps are they taking in
order to manage this problem? Is venting their only coping skill,
because that could be some signs of codependency or just
poor coping skills. And so I say that venting is healthy.
(23:25):
You know, we all need to do that. Sometimes it
can be helpful to have somebody to listen to us
and help us process our feelings and get a different perspective.
But at some point you have to take that venting
and what you get out of that and turn it
into action for yourself. That's not always easy to do,
but eventually you need to get there.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
So we know that these narratives that have been out
there around you know, romantic relationship kind of being the pinnacle,
these are not things that only straight women have fallen to.
Like we know it pervades all of our minds. And
so I'm thinking about even having conversations with partners about
continuing to prioritize your friends can sometimes be difficult if
they also expect that they are now the most important
(24:05):
person in your life right as opposed to being one
of many important people. So can you talk about one
suggestions for having conversations with romantic partners about the space
they occupy and the space friends occupy, and two any
red flags we should be on the lookout for when
we are navigating those kinds of conversations.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
This can be tough too, because a lot of the
dissentering romance talk is new for some people. So this
as a concept, this may not be something that people
are really familiar with, especially men. And then for people
in relationships, you maybe want to talk about this with
their partner. You want to show your partner that you
still love them, that you're not trying to demote them
in some way in your life. There's still this is
(24:44):
important to you. You're just trying to think about how
you manage your relationships in your life and that you
don't want your romantic partnership to be at the top
of the hierarchy. And that may be hard for some
partners to hear because again, traditionally, how we've been taught
to view romantic partnership, especially in CIS hetero relationships, is
(25:05):
that that's supposed to be at the center and all
your relationships come secondary to that. So that is just
what a lot of us have become accustomed to men, women,
and everyone else. This goes across gender. But if you
have a partner who's willing to talk about these things,
you may want to ask them, what does romantic love
mean to you, what place do you want it to
have in your life and have a dialogue about that
(25:27):
and asking yourself, how do I want this placeship to
fit in my life? Do I want this person to
be a part of all the areas of my life?
Do I want friends and family and this partner to
all be part of my social support together? Because some
people may have different friend groups or different sort of
partner groups that don't intersect, and that's totally fine too,
So thinking about where you want these people to land,
(25:49):
and also thinking about what do you contribute as a
friend a partner. I know a lot of times we're
looking for friends and partners, we're thinking about what they
can do for us, what they're bringing to the table.
But think about what makes you a good friend, what
makes you a good partner, And a lot of us
to be honest with ourselves about the fact whether or
not we're ready to be the kind of friend or
partner that we want. Because we say we want certain things,
(26:10):
we may not be ready for them. And so this
brings me to the red flags. If you have this
conversation and you notice that your partner or friend you're
getting defensive, which is very normal, especially when we're uncomfortable.
It may be that they're not ready to talk about
this at the moment. They may not be at a
point where they're ready to really explore this, because this
does can vary challenging to our value system. And then
(26:33):
you have to ask yourself, are you willing to still
grow this relationship if this person isn't able to meet
you where you're at, Because this is one of the
things that happens with any sort of growth, that whoever
we're in relationship with may not grow at the same
pace as we do, and so that may mean the
relationship has to end or it has to change. And
(26:54):
so if you have to be willing to let people go,
which is so difficult because we form attachments. But if
you find again, if the people in your life platonic, romantic,
or otherwise are not aligned with your value system, then
maybe trying to let those people go. And that's where
a lot of grief will come in. But grief is
very normal and it's painful, but it's something that you
(27:15):
can recover from.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
More from our conversation after the break, you mentioned Tiffany
this idea that it can be difficult for people to
have this kind of conversation because of the value system
that they have, and we know values are often shaped
by like family and religion and spirituality. Can you talk
(27:40):
about how all of those things impact our ability to
decenter romantic relationships.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Yeah, there's a lot of nuance to this, and I
will say that there is a certain privilege in decentering
romance for a lot of women, especially.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
You know, if you're a woman who has economic.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Resources, it's much easier to not have to rely on
a partner, so you can sort of opt out of
romantic partnership. And we know historically women didn't always have
this option, always have this option. Just the idea that
we can choose to be single permanently is still a
very modern concept. We're talking about maybe fifty to fifty
years out, and I think that we have to realize
(28:19):
that there's probably generations that preceded us that may think
that this whole concept is really weird. And people they
say it's like this angry feminist thing, and that's okay.
People may not get it, and that is okay. But
I think with the centering romantic love, you have to
realize that's also a marathon and not a sprint. It's
going to be an on going lifestyle adjustment. So it's
(28:40):
not like you do it for a couple of months
and then you're back out in doing things what you
did it before. It's pretty much like, this is how
I'm going to live my life. I'm going to not
have romantic love in dating and sects be the thing
that I center my social life or my life around.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I'm going to do other things.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
But that may mean I know, if it's for a
lot of women that I work with, there's a loneliness
in that because they find a lot of the women
that they're friends with center romantic love and they can
no longer relate. That can be very lonely. I get
that I've experienced it. There's a lot of women out
there that may be curious about this but may not
be ready to do it because they don't have the
social support. And so we need more communities where women
(29:21):
are dissenting romance, where they feel like they're not the
odd one out in their friend group because there's more
women who are finding fulfillment and more freedom in this.
But it's scary. It's scary because it's new, it's different, and.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Are there smaller things that we can be doing to
decenter romance as well. I mean, you've already talked about
making sure like all of your conversations with your friends
don't just focus on like okay, who redating, like what's happening?
Are the other things that are very practical for people
to kind of start the steps of de centering romance.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
So you're going out with your friends or whatever, You're
getting all dressed up, you're looking cute. You don't go
out with the intention of trying to meet somebody. Just
go out and have fun. You don't got to worry
about who you might run into or who you might meet.
It's really just about going out and living your life,
regardless of whether or not you find a partner or not.
And the other thing is too, is like I encourage
people to take breaks from social media to dessenter romance.
(30:16):
And the reason why social media is just filled with
so many images that make us feel like we're lacking,
whether that's the ways that are we look, or feeling
like we don't have enough money, or we don't have
the latest designers outfits or whatever. So social media tends
to make us feel like we have to buy more
do more and just have more in order to feel fulfilled.
(30:36):
So taking breaks, whether that's for a day or a
couple of hours, can really make a difference because you're
now one being more present in your offline life, and
you're also not being exposed to other people's lives and
playing the comparison game, because comparison is a very normal
human behavior. But also comparison, how does that quote go?
(30:58):
Comparison is a thief of joy?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, and it really is.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
You'll find yourself feeling like, man, I just don't have enough,
because yeah, there's always going to be somebody that has
more than we do of something, but focusing on that
will only make you miserable. Another book that I recommend
it claim out actually at the beginning of this year
is called The Other Significant Others by Rain and Cohen,
and she talks basically about what I was saying about
(31:22):
putting platonic love at the center.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
And there's these stories of people who.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Really have chosen their friends more so as life partners,
and they have spousanss and some of them have romantic partners,
but they're platonic friends.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Those are their people.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
And I think that book has provided a little bit
of a guide as to what our future can look
like as.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
We normalize relationships like this.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
We have a ways to go, though, But as we
see repductive rights being shipped away, as we see the
economy continue to be shaky, we're going to have to
find other ways to build community outside of romantic love.
Because romantic love one is not permanent. It's a very
shaky foundation to build any relationship on itself. So women,
we got to stretch beyondest parameters in order to really
(32:04):
build a well rounded life and support system.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Who You've talked already about some of the media portrayals
we see of women like girlfriends and sex and the
city where there tended to be a lot of conversation
around romance and like finding partners of that next stage
of life. I'm wondering if you can talk about the
impact that that has on these kinds of conversations around
these answering romance, and if you feel like there are
(32:28):
media portrayals that have done a better job of kind
of showing women as more full humans as opposed to
just kind of seeking romance.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Oh, that's a really good question.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I love that because I love pulling examples from pop
culture and so Sex and the City is something I've
been rewatching now as an adult because I was actually
I was like in high school when it was airing.
So Carrie and Big was considered to be like the
love story of Sex and the City is so watching
it now as a woman in my late thirties, it's
so horrifying because it's such a toxic dynamic. I've seen
(33:02):
a lot of content now on TikTok analyzing Sex and
the City, and I think a lot of people now realizing, yeah,
a lot of the relationships that were depicted in that show
were trash. They were not really anything to aspire to.
But we didn't have the language and that we do
now about popsic masculinity, about boundaries, all the things that
we talk about now that are more mainstream topics than
they were back in the early two thousands. But in
(33:24):
terms of like healthy relationship examples, I'm trying to think,
you know what, healthy relationships don't seem to be us
entertaining when it comes to media, So a lot of
them don't seem to get the shine. But for some reason,
the show that's come into mind right now was Insecure,
which I was a huge fan of I thought Insecure
did a great job of highlighting how one that relationships
(33:48):
at one point can be thought of as the center
of your life. But I loved how Issa really developed
so much of herself outside of her relationships, and that's
one of the things I appreciate some to the show.
It started out being sort of about her and Lawrence.
By the end of the series, she had become such
a different person, and I really wish we could have
(34:09):
got a spin off of just her journey after that,
but that probably won't happen. But I really just enjoyed
how much that show focused on the relationship between Molly
and Esa and all the other female characters, and it
wasn't just about who Lisa was dating and all the
ways that men were destroying her life. And I think
that we need more examples of that. I think we're
(34:29):
starting to see more stories being told that don't have
romance at the center. But again, I still think that
something that a lot of us are still trying to unlearn,
and that doesn't happen overnight. It does also come from
community reinforcement, and we are still receiving messaging from our advertisement,
from media, and from sometimes our own families about the
(34:50):
fact that we need to have a partner in order
it to be whole human beings.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So it's going to take some time.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, I mean, I definitely would agree with you about insecure.
We definitely covered insecure quite a lot on the podcast here,
but I definitely feel like the true love story and
insecure was among the four women, and even more so
between Molly and Lisa, Like it felt like at the
end that's kind of where we came to even though
Issa of course was the main character and we saw
her development, but I would agree that they did a
(35:16):
great job. Also, I feel like living single even at
a time when you maybe would have expected there to
be more conversation around dating, and it definitely was a
fair share of that, especially with regime right, But I
do feel like living single, we really saw them as
full humans with the running the business and family concerns.
I feel like they also did a really good job.
(35:37):
And then the third example I have that came to
mind was Meredith and Yang on Grey's Anatomy, Like I
feel like they were after Sex and the City started,
but it feels like they started like this new you're
my person kind of thing, and like this idea that
it didn't have to be a romantic partner. Yeah. So
those are three recent ones or not so recent that
I can think of.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I forgot all about Raison Aadamy because I remember I
was a huge fan of the early seasons of that show,
and that was a little bit after Text in the City.
But yeah, I remember doctor Christina Yang just how much
she wasn't willing to compromise herself and her career for
love and at that time was really something that was
refreshing to see. And I haven't forgotten that about her,
(36:19):
that character.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, yeah, she had that famous speech with Meredith because
Meredith strougled more than Christina did with this, and so
she talked about big Dreamy and him not being the
sun like you were actually the son. I just remember
that quote very vividly. I feel like, now we got
to do a rewatch to go back and watch it.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
I do.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
That was all, But there's like there's so many seasons
the grades out. I mean, I'm like probably twenty behind,
but that was they were ahead at their time. So
I think any show that really centers just the power
of intimacy of friendship, because for a lot of us,
those are some of the more sort of long lasting
relationships that we have, but we tend to sort of
cast those aside when we get our romantic partner, and
(37:00):
we got to make sure we're still nurturing those relationships
whether we're single or partnered.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
So you've already given us two great books, Fighting for
Our Friendships and the other Significant Other. Are there other
resources that you can think of that would help for
people who are kind of exploring these kinds of conversations,
So other books, podcasts, websites, like anything else you can
think of.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yes, there's a podcast by the name of Charlie's Toolbox.
She has a podcast and also Instagram and TikTok by
the same name.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
There's resources there.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
I also recommend the podcast by the same woman I
mentioned who wrote Fighting for Our Friendships. I believe the
podcast title is Friendship Forward. She's got a lot more
insight about navigating female friendship there, because a lot of
the centering romance is really going to be focusing on
friendship and really learning how to build up those relationships.
And also I have a website called The Center Romantic
(37:49):
Love where I have some resources on there. I have
a self paced course. I also have a Bechdale friendly
and media guide for those who may not be aware
if you're looking for media where it's not centered around romance.
I have some suggestions for movies and TV shows and
books to read that pass the Bechdel test. But I
also just encourage people to go back also to and
(38:10):
look over your social media feeds and think about all
the pages that you're following and how much of them
are focused on dating romance relationships. If you're interested in
decentering romantic loves, maybe you want to mute or on
follow some of those pages. That's one small way to
start is consuming less media where that is a focal point.
And I know this is hard too, because there's also
(38:31):
a business behind romantic love. But there's a whole other topic.
There's so much media coming out now. Love is Blind
and Perfect Match and all of these shows where romantic
love is made into a game and it's entertaining, but
it also perpetually some of the same sort of unhealthy
stereotypes about romantic love. So while those can be fun
to watch because I know I love me some Love
is Blind myself, maybe not watch too much of it.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
You know, perfect Well, we really appreciate you sharing all
of that with us. Tiffany, please share with us so
giving us your website, but give us any other websites
that you have and your social media handles so people
can stay connected.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
So you can find me on Instagram at This is
Tiffany Renee. You can also find me on TikTok. I'm
pretty active over there these day.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Same name.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
This is Tiffany Renee. You can also visit my website,
the Center Romanticlove dot com. It's also my coaching practice website.
And if you are in Pennsylvania and you are interested
in seeking psychotherapy services, my practice website is the Mendingspace
Therapy dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
We thank you for sharing all of those with us,
and we will be short to include those in the
show notes so people can connect with you easily. Thank
you so much for spending so much time with us today.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Thank you for having me, doctor Joy. I'm so happy
you had me on the show.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
I'm a fan.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Thank you for joining us. I'm so glad Tiffany was
able to join me for this conversation and share her expertise.
To learn more about her and her work, visit the
show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot Com slash Session
three seventy one. Don't forget to text two of your
girls right now and tell them to check out the episode.
(40:04):
If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit
our therapist directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory.
And if you want to continue digging into this topic
or just be in community with other sisters, come on
over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our
cozy corner of the Internet designed just for black women.
You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls
(40:24):
dot com. This episode was produced by Elise Ellis and
Zaia Taylor. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all
so much for joining me again this week. I look
forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Take good care.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
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