August 29, 2024 • 35 mins
Amy is chatting with Blake Blankenbecler, psychodynamic therapist by day and friendship expert by night! They discuss the different dynamics of a friendship, including how to approach conflict resolution, how to evaluate the friendship’s impact on you, as well as giving yourself grace when you drop the ball (there is no perfect friend!) and they close out with '4 Things Gratitude' (journals linked in case you want to try practicing gratitude at home!)
Friendship Fact: The average friendship lasts 7 years and we typically have 5 close meaningful relationships at any given time. These friendships have the biggest indicators on our health.
Ever wonder how to re-initiate conversation with an old friend you haven't talked with in a while? Blake shares the best way to reach out to a long-lost friend with courage and transparency. Amy even shares her experience with rekindling an old friendship with a college roommate!
How do we approach conflict resolution with a friend? “Don’t be afraid to lean in and ask the hard questions! Be brave!”
Blake has some expert advice to help us determine whether or not we should continue to nourish a friendship or if it’s time to let it go. Listen to your body! Here are some questions you can ask yourself:
How do you feel BEFORE hanging out with this friend?
How do you feel DURING hanging out with this friend?
How do you feel AFTER hanging out with this friend?
If you are looking for a different way to nurture relationships and deepen connection check out www.thefriendshipdeck.com!
Blake’s Book Recommendation: BFF: A Memoir of Friendship Lost and Found By Christie Tate
Blake’s Instagram Follow Recommendation: @jordandann
HOST: Amy Brown // RadioAmy.com // @RadioAmy
GUEST: Blake Blankenbecler // blakeblankenbecler.com // @blakeblankenbecler
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Cas up little food for yourself. Oh it's pretty, but hey,
it's pretty beautiful beautiful.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That's a little more.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Said. He you're kicking with four.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
With Amy Brown, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Four Things Amy here and Blake Blake and Beckler is
my guest today.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I nailed it. It's a tongue twister for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
But Blake came on my Outweig podcast to talk about
friendships and eating disorders and now she's on Four Things
Today to talk more friendship stuff because you're a therapist
by day and I feel like friendship expert.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
By Mary, yes literally, And she's.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
The creator of something really really cool that Kat Defada,
who's another therapist that co hosts The Fifth Thing with
Me on Tuesdays, told me about and we actually busted
out your cards on the episode. But Blake is the
creator of the Friendship Deck. But you can learn more
about that at the friendshipdeck dot com. But it's different
ways to nurture your relationships deep in connection and if
(01:27):
that's something that you're wanting to do, I highly recommend
you check those cards out. And we're going to talk
about relationships here and how many friendships can we handle
in any given season of life, should friends have fights?
What does healthy conflict look like? And we'll also get
into gratitude. I love hearing from guests what they're thankful
(01:49):
for so we can learn a little bit more about them.
So Blake will do that towards the end. But let's
start with exploring why some relationships end, because that's something
that I know is not talked about enough and I.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Think would be very, very helpful.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And maybe it's not even that it ended in some
you know, dramatic way, but people that you've lost touch with,
or you thought you were close to her college roommates
you thought you'd be friends for life or high school bfs. Yeah,
and even in this I'm going to take this part
a step further. If someone thinks of something right now,
someone right now, excuse me, that they've lost contact with,
(02:26):
what would be a cool way for them to reach back.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Out, because you totally can.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Then let's start.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
There, and then we'll go into, you know, the painful
side of friendships again, so that anybody walking through something
like that might not feel alone. But let's just hypothetically
say I had a BFF from my childhood all the
way through high school and then we lost touch but
now I can't stop thinking about her, So, like, what's
a cool, non creepy way to reach out.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I mean, you can let it be a little awkward
and you can literally, I mean slide slide back into
those dms if you still have their phone number, send
them a text and make it a name upfront, like
we ghosted or I dropped the ball, like you have
been on my mind. I really miss you, and if
you're open to it, I would love to reconnect. Is
(03:12):
that something that you would be open to, Like you
can just say it.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It's a vulnerable place to be because they may not reply,
or they may not be in the same space.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
But just I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Is it helpful to go ahead and prepare yourself that
that might be the case and to not take it personally.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I think you will take it personally if they don't respond.
I don't know if there's a way at least I
haven't figured out in all of my work to not
take things responsibly and have feelings. So maybe just prepare
that you will have feelings either way, that yes, you
will feel hurt if they don't respond, and so good
to feel hurt, like your body's telling that your feelings
(03:49):
and your body are telling you the truth. But you'll
also probably feel really nervous if you do. If this
friend says like, yes, I'd love to meet, like, it
will bring up a lot of insecurities and you probably
will feel like you're back in high school or back
in middle school, like, oh my gosh, I don't know
what to say. Well, they like me, will they be
my friends? Like? It's personal. It will bring it up feelings.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, speaking of feelings and certain relationships, what's a way
for someone to process through that? And it's a loss
either way, I think on both sides. Yeah, depending on
how it's breaking down, I'd.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Offer With friendship endings in particular, these things, more often
than not are slow burns. They take a long long
time to finally end, and sometimes there is a big
blow up, but more often than not, it's these small
ruptures over time, over time, over time where maybe you
(04:50):
as the friend, where like we can try to repair this,
we can try to make this work, Like I'm going
to try shifting how I show up, and there becomes
a certain point where it actually becomes harmful to you
as a friend to keep shifting, to keep trying to
show up differently, especially if the other friend isn't willing
to put in the work, Like if there is not
(05:11):
buy in on both sides of the friendship to really
try and to make a concerted effort, then that's going
to be a really lonely friendship to be in. And
often with friends, there's this myth that like they last forever,
and so it can be and feel really crazy making
to be in a friendship that's one sided, and that
(05:34):
you're like, am I doing something wrong? Like there's almost
so much self gaslighting that can happen of like am
I doing something wrong? Am I not trying hard enough?
And what I often help folks look at is like,
let's pay attention to what's happening in your body, Like
when was the last time that you actually felt good
and connected with this friend? And I know, even when
(05:55):
I looked at some of my own friendships that needed
to end, it was like, oh my gosh, it's been
years since we had this like really connecting time. And
yet I'm putting so much pressure on myself to show
up and be the best friends when I'm not actually
getting a lot in return. I'm not getting a lot
of care. And I've asked maybe like you've asked for it,
(06:17):
like hey, I really need support in this way, and
the friends like, yes, absolutely, I will show up. But
when when it actually comes to it, it's like it's crickets.
And so sometimes friendships do need to end. I mean,
on average, I think to take it more to a
statistic place and out of feelings. Like the average friendship
lasts around seven years, which tells you a lot, but
(06:40):
especially with these really deep connecting friendships that maybe you
had at these pivotal points, like your college roommate or
like y'all got you know, you you were single together
in your twenties and you got married and married together
blah blah blah, you were at each other's weddings. Like
those friendships hurt so much and they slowly fade an end.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I actually just reconnected with my college roommate last summer,
so cool.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, I've known her since my childhood and then we
lived together in college, and then after we graduated and
in our early twenties we sort of started to slowly
grow apart, and then some other circumstances happened and we
just honestly stopped talking. And there was some animosity on
both sides that started to build because there was never
(07:30):
communication about it.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
But anyway, fast.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Forward, there was probably about ironically seven years that had
gone by where we weren't connected at all, and when
we met up this last summer, coincidentally, we were all
at the same family camp for Young Life and so
we had a lot of time together. We set aside
time to just say hey, what happened, and we both
(07:54):
stayed on our side of the street and owned our side.
She was able to share where she knew she fell short,
and then I was able to share. There was no like, oh,
well you did this, or we just shared our honest feelings.
And then also both of us said we missed each other.
It was mutual and we loved each other and we
(08:16):
were able to forgive each other, and at that moment
we decided, okay, we're gonna start anew here. And now
we keep in touch regularly, mostly by voice text because
we're both moms, and that's totally fine where our relationship
is thriving on voice text right now. And a few
(08:38):
weeks after our meeting, she sent me a journal with
a handwritten note inside and just really laying out more
of her feelings around it all and how thankful she
was we were able to have that talk and there's
just been something missing in her life and that was
so warming for me to receive two, especially as I'm
in a season of wanting true connection people that want
(09:00):
to be with me and want to connect and accept
me as I am.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
And I just feel like we're more mature.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Now than we were back back in the day when
we drifted apart. I think now we're at a place where, oh,
I'm accepting, this is where you are. You're accepting, this
is where I am. And we we knew in our
hearts we missed each other. Now some friendships that may
not happen. That may not be the case. But I
just share that story as an example of you know,
maybe if it ends, who knows, one day.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I could pick back people back around.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
That's so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Why do people not talk about it though?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You know, when you break up with a boyfriend, you
talk about it, or something else ends, it's discussed. But
why don't we talk about more friendships ending.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I think there's less space for it. Oddly enough, like again,
it's more normal to have conversations with an ex boyfriend
or ending up. We don't have as many rituals or
saying to our girlfriends out that really hurt. I know,
like I will share my husband and I walked through
(10:08):
many years of infertility and that was so painful. And
I feel like anytime you go through a painful situation,
the sad thing is it is is it's this time
of like clearing out your address book, like you will
see the people that can show up for you and
the people that can't. And I think a huge thing
about being a good friend and being a conscious thoughtful
(10:32):
friend is choosing to ask harder questions and lean in.
And of course we have to accept that at younger,
like you were saying, at younger points in our life,
that was not an option for us, we didn't have
access to those parts of ourselves that could do good
conflicts repair work. But the older that we get, you know,
(10:52):
we go to therapy, we work on ourselves, We start
to take ownership of our feelings, and we start to
ask harder quessquestions. And I think that we have to
work on being braver with our questions because that was
such a like I listened to what y'all like that
conversation that you had, it took so much bravery on
(11:12):
both of your ends to say this is my part,
like this is my side of the street, this is
my mess, and this is my mess and let's talk
about it. And for a lot of us, we didn't
grow up in families that did that, so it takes
a lot of learning. And there's some people that are
not open to having those conversations. And i'd offer that
there is a felt sense in that your body can
(11:35):
give you of just kind of this like tightness or
this constriction when someone isn't open to really hearing feedback
or to having to going to those places. Like all
of our friends are not going to want to have
those hard conversations, and so that doesn't necessarily mean that
we need to end friendships with all of them, but
maybe we're less close with those people, and you now
(11:56):
have the capacity to be more close with this friend
of yours because you've had those conversations.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, I think what it showed me and we both
realized in the last few years how much therapy we
were doing her separately on her OWND, but I had
no idea about and then.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Me on my end.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So I feel like that's why we were able to
connect in such a healthy way. But also what it
showed me is what healing truly looks like, and that
or repair in a sense, this is what it can
look like. And yeah, that feeling if you're not having
it somewhere else, like it's okay to let go of
it and know, hey, I don't have to fight for
(12:36):
this this repair because it's not presenting the way I
just experienced, which gave me a very a very fulfilling
experience of well, that was hard to go there, but
totally worth it and I felt full afterwards, whereas you know,
sometimes other repairs just haven't felt that way at all.
(12:57):
And so when it comes to listening to our body,
because again I think that's also come with my therapy,
is being able to listen to myself that has taken
so much work. What advice do you have for people
to be able to tune in to more of what
their body is telling them when they're with certain people.
(13:25):
What advice do you have for people to be able
to tune in to more of what their body is
telling them when they're with certain people.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Gosh, I mean just even slowing down for two seconds
to notice what's it feel like after I sent this
person a text message? What's it feel like to get
a text message from this person? You know, I think
about a text message a person sends me often leaves
me like wanting more like that's all you've got, And
(13:54):
my body often like feel like I feel this drop
in my stomach and like I find myself wanting to
lean in more like oh, and a holding sadness in
my body of oh, that's it. And then they're other friends.
Like I saw an I message pop up on my
computer and it was from one of my friends. My
body immediately lifted and I like almost like sucked in
(14:15):
breath with excitement of like, ah, she reached out to me.
I'm so excited to hear what she says. And I
am also an evangelist for voice notes, my gosh, friendships.
If you're not using them, please use them. They're like
the greatest things for friendships ever. And she sends the
best voice notes, and so I know, I'm like, oh,
my gosh, I'm about to get a treat from my
heart and my soul from her, And my body feels
(14:38):
really excited and expansive. And so even just like slowly
starting to pay attention to what are the felts since
like when you're spending time with this person, before, during,
and after, so noticing does my body get really excited?
Do I feel lighter after I leave? Do I feel heavier?
One of the best things that my husband and did
(15:00):
for me to help me start paying attention to this,
because again, I too was not always great at listening
to my body is I would come back home from
hanging out with someone and he would reflect like, you
seem to have a lot of energy, you seem really jazz,
Like you seem really excited, or he'd say, honey, like
you're like there's like some negative energy here, like what happened?
(15:21):
What wasn't good there? Like did something happen? And that
really helps me tap into my own body of like, oh,
there's so much data going on, and so much data
that my body's giving me. It's telling us a lot
of truth about who we want to be with and
who we don't want to be with as much.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I instantly start to think like, oh, like is something
wrong with me? Or I don't want that person to
think that there's something wrong with them? Can you speak
to that that Just if a relationship isn't working out,
it doesn't mean that one of the people is bad
bad person, because they may have other connections and friendship
and ways they can show up. But the point is
(16:02):
we can't be friends with every everybody that we come
in contact with, and some drive, some don't. But it
doesn't mean anybody's bad.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
That's what I love to say. I like to take badness,
people being bad kind of off. I mean unless you're
I don't whoever you need to name is bad, who
is like an actually bad person? But we can take
that off the table, like no one has to be toxic.
I don't actually love that word when it comes to friends.
No one has to be bad, but you can be different.
(16:32):
And sometimes the most loving thing that you can do
is love someone from afar and that it's the kindest
thing for yourself, and it's the kindest thing for your
friend is to no longer be in relationship with each other.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I saw a quote. It says it's from Ali Condy.
As you were talking, I remembered, so I took a screenshot. Yeah,
I just pulled it up and it says growing apart
doesn't change the fact that for a long time we
grew side by side. Our roots will always be tangled.
I'm glad for that. Yeah, I don't know exactly what
she's talking about. I don't know if it's a romantic
relationship for a friendship, but I feel like it can
(17:07):
apply to any relationship absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
And that's how it's like, you can love the person
they're not bad. It's like, my gosh, this person, this
friend served such a role, is such an important piece.
I can look back on that time with fondness and
it feels special in my body, and I can honor that,
and I can know that we have changed and we
are no longer on the same page, and so I
(17:30):
can wish this person well. But that doesn't mean that
I have to keep trying to be in a friendship
it doesn't work with them. And then the second piece
too that I would name, especially when it comes to
feelings in our bodies, is a lot of times we
do struggle with invalidating ourselves, like I shouldn't be feeling
this way, I should be fine, I should be so excited,
(17:51):
like something is wrong with me. And I think that's
when we have to slow down and ask, like our
bodies are trying to tell us something, they're not trying
to just get rid of every single friend in our
life by any means. But our bodies are giving us
wisdom and we have to believe that we are worthy
and that we are again good people. We're not bad
(18:13):
people for like having feelings or not being able to
not liking everyone, And so it's even just validating, like yeah,
my body's constricting or my body's feeling really tense around
this person for a reason, like I don't have to
be bad and they don't have to be bad, but
can I be brave enough to listen to what my
body's trying to say, and maybe it's trying to say
like it's not actually safe to go deep or to
(18:36):
show this friend this new part of yourself that you're
discovering and really excited about and changing into.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
You gave us a stat that seven years is kind
of an average for friendships. What is the stat for
how many friends we should have or what is manageable?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Manageable? Yes, again, this is a spectrum. There's a researcher
out of Oxford. I believe his name's Robin Dunbar. He
did all of this incredible research on friendships and he said, basically,
we can have one hundred and fifty meaningful relationships. That's
a ton. But where the cream of the butter is
(19:16):
like the best of the best is actually we can
only have about five close meaningful relationships at one time.
That's how much we can tolerate. And that those five
people that are closest to us have the biggest indicators
on our health, on our well being. They are booies
against anxiety and depression or the opposite. They can create
(19:37):
more anxiety and depression in us. They affect our mental
health and our well being more than anything. Is the
people that you are spending the people that are closest
to you. So within the five people, your spouse is
one of them. If you have a partner, your family,
like if you have a sister that you're really close to,
that would also be one of them. So there's not
(19:57):
that much room for like deep, deep meat being full friendships.
But the reason I love this statistic and I love
actually how small it is, is because it shows us
like we can't do everything. We can't be friends with
everyone to the capacity that we want to, Like, we
can't really go deep with that many people, like we
have to choose and be really wise about who we're
(20:20):
letting into her inner circle.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
And one way to do that is paying attention to
our bodies. Yes, yes, yes, and my bff from high school,
which we surpassed the seven years rats. You know, she
recently moved into a new neighborhood and I don't know
if I mentioned this to you the last time we talked,
but she told me, Hell, look, I'm making all these
(20:43):
new neighbor friends. But here's the deal, Like, I'm just
not interested in microwaving friendships. Yes, I want to take
my time and see who I want to connect with
and not just become friends with everybody in the neighborhood
because I'm new here. And I loved that she said
microwaving friendships. I feel like that's what can happen sometimes
and goes a little too fast and then you get
(21:05):
in a little too deep and you're like, oh no,
there really isn't a good connection here.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, Like slow down. I think there's something really beautiful
and like the zeitgeist right now that people are flowing
down and really reflecting on their friendships and taking inventory
of like who do I want the people in my
life to be around me? Because I will be like them.
I take after them. And I want to make sure
that these are people and women and men that value
(21:32):
integrity and that share and you know, are my moral
compass and have the same ethics. So yeah, be choosy,
like this is such an important time to be selfish
with who you're spending time with. We have the least,
we're spending the least amount of time with our friends
than ever before because we have the least amount of time,
which makes it all the more important that the people
(21:54):
that we are giving our precious friendship time to are
incredible people.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
So how do we nurture those five? And I'm sure
you know you said it's a spectrum. So for so,
I don't want anybody, Yes, I don't want anybody listening
right now to be like, oh shoot, okay, I have seven.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
I got to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yes, there's different tolerance for every like for some people,
like it's only two and for some people it's seven
to ten. It is again, it is a spectrum. I
love that you said that, Yes, like, do what is working?
Some people have, especially you know, thinking about enneagram numbers
or introversion extraversion, like they can just tolerate a lot more.
And some people who might come from more say like
(22:34):
trauma histories or something like that, Like closeness is really
hard and scary, and so it takes a long time
to get close, and so it's maybe only two or
three people in that inner circle.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
That's something that I realized in my deep therapy work
was that I wasn't great at connection. Yeah, and some
of that was from some emotional stuff and ways in
which emotionally there was some neglect as a child, and
I didn't really know how to nurture that. And so
I love that there's things like the friendship deck or
(23:05):
ways to connect and so share some examples from that
that would be helpful for someone to maybe reach out
to a friend today to try it out with, or
if they're going to dinner in the next week or
this weekend or something, they might be able to ask
a friend this question. Like a fun game like you
go around and ask a question.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Playing the friendship deck is great, But a question that
I love asking is a question is like what's something
you wish that I asked you about? More like what's
something that you want to talk about that I haven't
asked you about enough. I think that that's such a
great starting place because that will let you know so clearly,
like where are your friends at and what they're needing?
(23:44):
And I know that when people ask me, like when
a friend asks me that question, it's like, wait, they're
really caring, Like that's such a generous question. So even
just saying like, yeah, what would you like me to
ask you about? And it's brave too. I think that
it's you know, it's a vulnerable question because we if
you are on the receiving end of that question, I
think it'd be easy to say like, oh, I don't care,
(24:07):
da da da, But can you hold yourself to a
standard and can you hold yourself to be brave and
vulnerable enough to say, actually, like I would love if
you ask me more about this, Like, you know, I
mentioned earlier in Fertility that that we've struggled with and
that was a huge one is I wanted my friends
(24:27):
to ask me about it because I was always thinking
about it. It was incredibly lonely and it was incredibly difficult,
and it was just so helpful when I had a
friends that chose to be brave and kind of bridge
the gap and just say like how is that going,
Like what's happening? How's IVF going like, do you need
(24:47):
help with shots all of that? Because it just made
me feel so much less alone, and I think it, Yeah,
we can be brave with our friendships and just ask like,
what do you need more of? What would be helpful?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
In a similar vein, be brave is also sharing if
your feelings have been her in a way or something
was done, and that you can't actually have healthy conflict
with friends, and actually is conflict good in any relationship?
(25:26):
Is conflict good in any relationship?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
One hundred percent? My mentor used to say, this conflict
dealt with correctly breeds intimacy. And then I have another friends.
There's so much good work on conflict. I have another friend,
Jordan Dan. She's an incredible couples therapist. She says, conflict
is growth trying to happen. So we want conflict, we
just have to actually let it be felt above the
(25:51):
surface with our friends.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, so don't buy into the myth that if you're
really good friends then you should never fight.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Exactly. Yeah, when we hear fight, I think we often
go to like these knockout, gnarly places of like screaming
at each other and calling each other mean names. It's
not that a lot of times fighting or conflict can
be as simple but as scary to name. It's like, hey,
it really hurt my feelings that you didn't call me
on my birthday. A common thing that I hear is
(26:18):
when a friend becomes friends with someone new, of like, hey,
I'm really scared that this friend's like taking my place
over that I'm going to be forgotten about. Can we
talk about that? Just to name those things. If we
can commit to doing that, I think it will transform
our friendships and make them such safer places.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Do you think that some people at the beginning, like
I have some friends that are like, hey, look, I'm
just not the I don't remember people's birthday. I'm not
going it's just not me. Like, if that's what you need,
then like I can't do it. And I think I've
heard maybe Glennon Doyle say that she's kind of like that,
and you know our mutual friend Kat, She's kind of like, yeah,
I mean I get it. Life happens because I I've
(27:00):
been that person. I've had friends that have not reached
out online, but then I've been the friend and I
felt awful where it was, Oh, this is so their
birthday today and I completely messed up and it feels
so crappy, and then I regret not in the moment
acknowledging that.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
I just sort of was like, oh, shoot, here you go.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But maybe pausing to acknowledge, Gosh, that really must have
hurt your feelings. But I guess for me sometimes again
because I try not to make a big deal if
someone had forgotten mine. But I guess that's to minimize
my hurt. Probably huh, maybe, Okay, you're sliming at me
right now like a therapist. But again, different personalities, different things,
(27:45):
Like because of my brain and how it is, I've
had to be more diligent about putting everybody's birthday in
my calendar and making sure that I'm on top of it,
because what history has shown me is that if I don't,
then that I run the of missing someone's day.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
And gosh, times that I've done that, it feels awesome.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I feel good. This goes back to why I don't
think it is our job to remember everybody and their
mom's birthday, but our close people like those people and
are inner circle, we want to celebrate them really well,
and so yeah, making a point to put their birthdays
in your calendar to remember, or even saying to a
friend that if they don't do birthdays a lot, like
(28:27):
this would be a great place to let someone know,
like my birthday's coming up. We have not been friends
for a long time, but like my birthday is a
really big deal and I need you to celebrate me.
That's really important, and even stating your need as a
friend that that's really important to you, that that feels
really special to you. And we all make mistakes, like
we all forget, we all drop the ball. Being a
(28:48):
good friend is not at all about being a perfect friend.
Like our friendships if we really care for them or
can be really durable and they can hold apologies, and
I think it's us apologize and saying like, ah, I
am so sorry. That must have felt really bad that
I forgot your birthday and I want to hear about
what that was like for you. And if you need
(29:09):
to talk about it more, we can talk about it more.
But I do want to celebrate you. I am really sorry,
x y Z.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
That's brave. So but sometimes but again, so is saying.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
What you need.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
And that's any relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I know.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I keep bringing up our mutual friend cat, but She
was so proud of herself the other day. And I mean,
she's a therapist and she's married, and she was telling
me how she was so proud of herself for actually
telling him something that she really needed instead of just
not acknowledging it. Or it could be something as simple
as like, hey, do you want me to go pick
up bagels this morning? And I think her first thought
(29:45):
was like, oh, I don't want to put him. I
don't want him to have to do that, but she
really wanted a bagel. Yeah, she said, actually, yes, I
would love for you to go get us bagels. Who
knows what the circumstances were. She just didn't feel like
it was ideal, but it's really what she wanted. So
she said it and he went and he did it,
and it was great yes, because then she didn't have
resentment of like, oh I wish you would have gone
(30:05):
to get the bagels anyways, right something.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yes, leus therapist are still so human. I said this
to one of my best friends this week, is like
I'm working on stating my needs because she was asking
we infertility story. We were able to get pregnant through IVF,
so we're very excited about that and thinking about maternity leave,
and I was like, I need help, and so I
(30:28):
texted my friends because she was like, what do you
want me to get you? And I said, honestly, the
best gifts would be if you could come for a
week after baby is born and help. And that was
so because I'm like, she's a doctor, she has a
big life, and this is a big ask. Is it
too much to ask for? And she is so generous
and she's like, here are the dates that I can come,
(30:49):
and I was like, Oh, I'm so proud of myself
for doing this and for asking for what I needed.
This is going to be so much more meaningful than
any like fascinet she could have given me.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah, that's such a bat full example. I love it.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I went through infertility stuff too, and I know it's
not easy, and it was always awkward too, because so
many of my friends were getting pregnant around that time
and there was baby showers and oh right, it was
hard to talk about or say, oh, yay, I know
you're really happy that you just got a positive test,
but I just started my period and I have like
(31:23):
fifty negative tests in my bathroom, so I know it
can be a tricky thing. Yeah, so I'd love to
hear four things that you are currently thankful for.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
This is such a random one, but like, I am
so thankful for cold fresh fruit. That is all that
has been sounding good to me lately. So like I
have been crushing some pineapple lately. Pretty boring, but it
makes me happy. There's a new book that I just finished.
It is called BFF by Christy Tait, So especially if
(31:54):
any of this resonated with you, it is this incredible
memoir of this woman who writes so candidly about her
friendships and about how she feels like she is not
a good friend, and her and this friends that she
meets in one of her recovery meetings like join together
and decide to really start like taking inventory at their
(32:15):
friendships and looking at and exploring why they feel like
they haven't been good friends to both each other, to
people around them, to people in their past. And it
is so meaningful and so special, and yeah, I just
really recommend it to normalize for anybody that has been
struggling in their friendships or wants to be a better friend.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
I love that. Would you say it was called again?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It's called BFF by Christy Tait. Another thing would be
an Instagram follower or an Instagram follow that I'm so
grateful for and I'm so grateful for her resources. I
recommend her to my clients to follow, like she's incredible
and I am so grateful that she's now become a
friend of mine. Her name is Jordan Dan is Jordan
Dan with two inns, and she talks about couples and
(33:03):
relationships and somatic work, which is a lot of what
we just touched on working on your body. And she
just has so many incredible resources for you when it
comes to having healthier, more conscious, and more thoughtful relationships
that everyone can follow and learn and it's so great.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Oh I just pulled her up and I'm like, oh, yes.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yes, she's amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
This is a good follow. You know, Instagram, sometimes you
can be like, Okay, now this.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Ye I don't think I don't need to follow this.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, but no, I like now following so many different
things that are just going to give me a daily
dose of encouragement or information or something that I can
put in my toolbox or something I can reflect on
later or maybe journal about later or dig into later.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Oh, there's a lot here.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yes, you can hang out there for a long time.
There's some good stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
And then what's your Instagram? Where can people find you?
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Just put in a lot of a lot of letters Blake, Blanken,
Beckler and and I'll show up eventually. Just throw in
all those letters. But yes, that's my Instagram. And then
if you want to learn more about the friendship deck,
that one is an easier You can just go to
the friendshipdeck dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Well, thank you for helping us talk about friendship today
and what you do with your career and things you're
putting out into the world to put a spotlight on friendship,
because it's something that I know that I just wasn't
exposed too much and didn't really talk about. I sort
of just kind of didn't really put much work into it.
And now I'm in a season of life where I
(34:32):
want that more connection, that true connection. And so it's
refreshing to hear that it's okay if we don't have
a bajillion friends, because there's a spectrum and we can
on average only handle about five. And it's crazy that
also includes a significant other and a sibling, right Like.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
We just don't have that much. We're not as like
multifaceted as we think we do. We're more limited. But
I think if we do slow down and really dive
into a few friendships, you can go really beautiful places together.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Well, thank you, Blake, and best of luck with the baby.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Thank you, Bye bye
Cas up little food for yourself. Oh it's pretty, but hey,
it's pretty beautiful beautiful.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That's a little more.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Said. He you're kicking with four.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
With Amy Brown, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Four Things Amy here and Blake Blake and Beckler is
my guest today.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I nailed it. It's a tongue twister for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
But Blake came on my Outweig podcast to talk about
friendships and eating disorders and now she's on Four Things
Today to talk more friendship stuff because you're a therapist
by day and I feel like friendship expert.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
By Mary, yes literally, And she's.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
The creator of something really really cool that Kat Defada,
who's another therapist that co hosts The Fifth Thing with
Me on Tuesdays, told me about and we actually busted
out your cards on the episode. But Blake is the
creator of the Friendship Deck. But you can learn more
about that at the friendshipdeck dot com. But it's different
ways to nurture your relationships deep in connection and if
(01:27):
that's something that you're wanting to do, I highly recommend
you check those cards out. And we're going to talk
about relationships here and how many friendships can we handle
in any given season of life, should friends have fights?
What does healthy conflict look like? And we'll also get
into gratitude. I love hearing from guests what they're thankful
(01:49):
for so we can learn a little bit more about them.
So Blake will do that towards the end. But let's
start with exploring why some relationships end, because that's something
that I know is not talked about enough and I.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Think would be very, very helpful.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And maybe it's not even that it ended in some
you know, dramatic way, but people that you've lost touch with,
or you thought you were close to her college roommates
you thought you'd be friends for life or high school bfs. Yeah,
and even in this I'm going to take this part
a step further. If someone thinks of something right now,
someone right now, excuse me, that they've lost contact with,
(02:26):
what would be a cool way for them to reach back.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Out, because you totally can.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Then let's start.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
There, and then we'll go into, you know, the painful
side of friendships again, so that anybody walking through something
like that might not feel alone. But let's just hypothetically
say I had a BFF from my childhood all the
way through high school and then we lost touch but
now I can't stop thinking about her, So, like, what's
a cool, non creepy way to reach out.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I mean, you can let it be a little awkward
and you can literally, I mean slide slide back into
those dms if you still have their phone number, send
them a text and make it a name upfront, like
we ghosted or I dropped the ball, like you have
been on my mind. I really miss you, and if
you're open to it, I would love to reconnect. Is
(03:12):
that something that you would be open to, Like you
can just say it.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It's a vulnerable place to be because they may not reply,
or they may not be in the same space.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
But just I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Is it helpful to go ahead and prepare yourself that
that might be the case and to not take it personally.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I think you will take it personally if they don't respond.
I don't know if there's a way at least I
haven't figured out in all of my work to not
take things responsibly and have feelings. So maybe just prepare
that you will have feelings either way, that yes, you
will feel hurt if they don't respond, and so good
to feel hurt, like your body's telling that your feelings
(03:49):
and your body are telling you the truth. But you'll
also probably feel really nervous if you do. If this
friend says like, yes, I'd love to meet, like, it
will bring up a lot of insecurities and you probably
will feel like you're back in high school or back
in middle school, like, oh my gosh, I don't know
what to say. Well, they like me, will they be
my friends? Like? It's personal. It will bring it up feelings.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, speaking of feelings and certain relationships, what's a way
for someone to process through that? And it's a loss
either way, I think on both sides. Yeah, depending on
how it's breaking down, I'd.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Offer With friendship endings in particular, these things, more often
than not are slow burns. They take a long long
time to finally end, and sometimes there is a big
blow up, but more often than not, it's these small
ruptures over time, over time, over time where maybe you
(04:50):
as the friend, where like we can try to repair this,
we can try to make this work, Like I'm going
to try shifting how I show up, and there becomes
a certain point where it actually becomes harmful to you
as a friend to keep shifting, to keep trying to
show up differently, especially if the other friend isn't willing
to put in the work, Like if there is not
(05:11):
buy in on both sides of the friendship to really
try and to make a concerted effort, then that's going
to be a really lonely friendship to be in. And
often with friends, there's this myth that like they last forever,
and so it can be and feel really crazy making
to be in a friendship that's one sided, and that
(05:34):
you're like, am I doing something wrong? Like there's almost
so much self gaslighting that can happen of like am
I doing something wrong? Am I not trying hard enough?
And what I often help folks look at is like,
let's pay attention to what's happening in your body, Like
when was the last time that you actually felt good
and connected with this friend? And I know, even when
(05:55):
I looked at some of my own friendships that needed
to end, it was like, oh my gosh, it's been
years since we had this like really connecting time. And
yet I'm putting so much pressure on myself to show
up and be the best friends when I'm not actually
getting a lot in return. I'm not getting a lot
of care. And I've asked maybe like you've asked for it,
(06:17):
like hey, I really need support in this way, and
the friends like, yes, absolutely, I will show up. But
when when it actually comes to it, it's like it's crickets.
And so sometimes friendships do need to end. I mean,
on average, I think to take it more to a
statistic place and out of feelings. Like the average friendship
lasts around seven years, which tells you a lot, but
(06:40):
especially with these really deep connecting friendships that maybe you
had at these pivotal points, like your college roommate or
like y'all got you know, you you were single together
in your twenties and you got married and married together
blah blah blah, you were at each other's weddings. Like
those friendships hurt so much and they slowly fade an end.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I actually just reconnected with my college roommate last summer,
so cool.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, I've known her since my childhood and then we
lived together in college, and then after we graduated and
in our early twenties we sort of started to slowly
grow apart, and then some other circumstances happened and we
just honestly stopped talking. And there was some animosity on
both sides that started to build because there was never
(07:30):
communication about it.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
But anyway, fast.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Forward, there was probably about ironically seven years that had
gone by where we weren't connected at all, and when
we met up this last summer, coincidentally, we were all
at the same family camp for Young Life and so
we had a lot of time together. We set aside
time to just say hey, what happened, and we both
(07:54):
stayed on our side of the street and owned our side.
She was able to share where she knew she fell short,
and then I was able to share. There was no like, oh,
well you did this, or we just shared our honest feelings.
And then also both of us said we missed each other.
It was mutual and we loved each other and we
(08:16):
were able to forgive each other, and at that moment
we decided, okay, we're gonna start anew here. And now
we keep in touch regularly, mostly by voice text because
we're both moms, and that's totally fine where our relationship
is thriving on voice text right now. And a few
(08:38):
weeks after our meeting, she sent me a journal with
a handwritten note inside and just really laying out more
of her feelings around it all and how thankful she
was we were able to have that talk and there's
just been something missing in her life and that was
so warming for me to receive two, especially as I'm
in a season of wanting true connection people that want
(09:00):
to be with me and want to connect and accept
me as I am.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
And I just feel like we're more mature.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Now than we were back back in the day when
we drifted apart. I think now we're at a place where, oh,
I'm accepting, this is where you are. You're accepting, this
is where I am. And we we knew in our
hearts we missed each other. Now some friendships that may
not happen. That may not be the case. But I
just share that story as an example of you know,
maybe if it ends, who knows, one day.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I could pick back people back around.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
That's so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Why do people not talk about it though?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You know, when you break up with a boyfriend, you
talk about it, or something else ends, it's discussed. But
why don't we talk about more friendships ending.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I think there's less space for it. Oddly enough, like again,
it's more normal to have conversations with an ex boyfriend
or ending up. We don't have as many rituals or
saying to our girlfriends out that really hurt. I know,
like I will share my husband and I walked through
(10:08):
many years of infertility and that was so painful. And
I feel like anytime you go through a painful situation,
the sad thing is it is is it's this time
of like clearing out your address book, like you will
see the people that can show up for you and
the people that can't. And I think a huge thing
about being a good friend and being a conscious thoughtful
(10:32):
friend is choosing to ask harder questions and lean in.
And of course we have to accept that at younger,
like you were saying, at younger points in our life,
that was not an option for us, we didn't have
access to those parts of ourselves that could do good
conflicts repair work. But the older that we get, you know,
(10:52):
we go to therapy, we work on ourselves, We start
to take ownership of our feelings, and we start to
ask harder quessquestions. And I think that we have to
work on being braver with our questions because that was
such a like I listened to what y'all like that
conversation that you had, it took so much bravery on
(11:12):
both of your ends to say this is my part,
like this is my side of the street, this is
my mess, and this is my mess and let's talk
about it. And for a lot of us, we didn't
grow up in families that did that, so it takes
a lot of learning. And there's some people that are
not open to having those conversations. And i'd offer that
there is a felt sense in that your body can
(11:35):
give you of just kind of this like tightness or
this constriction when someone isn't open to really hearing feedback
or to having to going to those places. Like all
of our friends are not going to want to have
those hard conversations, and so that doesn't necessarily mean that
we need to end friendships with all of them, but
maybe we're less close with those people, and you now
(11:56):
have the capacity to be more close with this friend
of yours because you've had those conversations.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, I think what it showed me and we both
realized in the last few years how much therapy we
were doing her separately on her OWND, but I had
no idea about and then.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Me on my end.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So I feel like that's why we were able to
connect in such a healthy way. But also what it
showed me is what healing truly looks like, and that
or repair in a sense, this is what it can
look like. And yeah, that feeling if you're not having
it somewhere else, like it's okay to let go of
it and know, hey, I don't have to fight for
(12:36):
this this repair because it's not presenting the way I
just experienced, which gave me a very a very fulfilling
experience of well, that was hard to go there, but
totally worth it and I felt full afterwards, whereas you know,
sometimes other repairs just haven't felt that way at all.
(12:57):
And so when it comes to listening to our body,
because again I think that's also come with my therapy,
is being able to listen to myself that has taken
so much work. What advice do you have for people
to be able to tune in to more of what
their body is telling them when they're with certain people.
(13:25):
What advice do you have for people to be able
to tune in to more of what their body is
telling them when they're with certain people.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Gosh, I mean just even slowing down for two seconds
to notice what's it feel like after I sent this
person a text message? What's it feel like to get
a text message from this person? You know, I think
about a text message a person sends me often leaves
me like wanting more like that's all you've got, And
(13:54):
my body often like feel like I feel this drop
in my stomach and like I find myself wanting to
lean in more like oh, and a holding sadness in
my body of oh, that's it. And then they're other friends.
Like I saw an I message pop up on my
computer and it was from one of my friends. My
body immediately lifted and I like almost like sucked in
(14:15):
breath with excitement of like, ah, she reached out to me.
I'm so excited to hear what she says. And I
am also an evangelist for voice notes, my gosh, friendships.
If you're not using them, please use them. They're like
the greatest things for friendships ever. And she sends the
best voice notes, and so I know, I'm like, oh,
my gosh, I'm about to get a treat from my
heart and my soul from her, And my body feels
(14:38):
really excited and expansive. And so even just like slowly
starting to pay attention to what are the felts since
like when you're spending time with this person, before, during,
and after, so noticing does my body get really excited?
Do I feel lighter after I leave? Do I feel heavier?
One of the best things that my husband and did
(15:00):
for me to help me start paying attention to this,
because again, I too was not always great at listening
to my body is I would come back home from
hanging out with someone and he would reflect like, you
seem to have a lot of energy, you seem really jazz,
Like you seem really excited, or he'd say, honey, like
you're like there's like some negative energy here, like what happened?
(15:21):
What wasn't good there? Like did something happen? And that
really helps me tap into my own body of like, oh,
there's so much data going on, and so much data
that my body's giving me. It's telling us a lot
of truth about who we want to be with and
who we don't want to be with as much.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I instantly start to think like, oh, like is something
wrong with me? Or I don't want that person to
think that there's something wrong with them? Can you speak
to that that Just if a relationship isn't working out,
it doesn't mean that one of the people is bad
bad person, because they may have other connections and friendship
and ways they can show up. But the point is
(16:02):
we can't be friends with every everybody that we come
in contact with, and some drive, some don't. But it
doesn't mean anybody's bad.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
That's what I love to say. I like to take badness,
people being bad kind of off. I mean unless you're
I don't whoever you need to name is bad, who
is like an actually bad person? But we can take
that off the table, like no one has to be toxic.
I don't actually love that word when it comes to friends.
No one has to be bad, but you can be different.
(16:32):
And sometimes the most loving thing that you can do
is love someone from afar and that it's the kindest
thing for yourself, and it's the kindest thing for your
friend is to no longer be in relationship with each other.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I saw a quote. It says it's from Ali Condy.
As you were talking, I remembered, so I took a screenshot. Yeah,
I just pulled it up and it says growing apart
doesn't change the fact that for a long time we
grew side by side. Our roots will always be tangled.
I'm glad for that. Yeah, I don't know exactly what
she's talking about. I don't know if it's a romantic
relationship for a friendship, but I feel like it can
(17:07):
apply to any relationship absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
And that's how it's like, you can love the person
they're not bad. It's like, my gosh, this person, this
friend served such a role, is such an important piece.
I can look back on that time with fondness and
it feels special in my body, and I can honor that,
and I can know that we have changed and we
are no longer on the same page, and so I
(17:30):
can wish this person well. But that doesn't mean that
I have to keep trying to be in a friendship
it doesn't work with them. And then the second piece
too that I would name, especially when it comes to
feelings in our bodies, is a lot of times we
do struggle with invalidating ourselves, like I shouldn't be feeling
this way, I should be fine, I should be so excited,
(17:51):
like something is wrong with me. And I think that's
when we have to slow down and ask, like our
bodies are trying to tell us something, they're not trying
to just get rid of every single friend in our
life by any means. But our bodies are giving us
wisdom and we have to believe that we are worthy
and that we are again good people. We're not bad
(18:13):
people for like having feelings or not being able to
not liking everyone, And so it's even just validating, like yeah,
my body's constricting or my body's feeling really tense around
this person for a reason, like I don't have to
be bad and they don't have to be bad, but
can I be brave enough to listen to what my
body's trying to say, and maybe it's trying to say
like it's not actually safe to go deep or to
(18:36):
show this friend this new part of yourself that you're
discovering and really excited about and changing into.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
You gave us a stat that seven years is kind
of an average for friendships. What is the stat for
how many friends we should have or what is manageable?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Manageable? Yes, again, this is a spectrum. There's a researcher
out of Oxford. I believe his name's Robin Dunbar. He
did all of this incredible research on friendships and he said, basically,
we can have one hundred and fifty meaningful relationships. That's
a ton. But where the cream of the butter is
(19:16):
like the best of the best is actually we can
only have about five close meaningful relationships at one time.
That's how much we can tolerate. And that those five
people that are closest to us have the biggest indicators
on our health, on our well being. They are booies
against anxiety and depression or the opposite. They can create
(19:37):
more anxiety and depression in us. They affect our mental
health and our well being more than anything. Is the
people that you are spending the people that are closest
to you. So within the five people, your spouse is
one of them. If you have a partner, your family,
like if you have a sister that you're really close to,
that would also be one of them. So there's not
(19:57):
that much room for like deep, deep meat being full friendships.
But the reason I love this statistic and I love
actually how small it is, is because it shows us
like we can't do everything. We can't be friends with
everyone to the capacity that we want to, Like, we
can't really go deep with that many people, like we
have to choose and be really wise about who we're
(20:20):
letting into her inner circle.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
And one way to do that is paying attention to
our bodies. Yes, yes, yes, and my bff from high school,
which we surpassed the seven years rats. You know, she
recently moved into a new neighborhood and I don't know
if I mentioned this to you the last time we talked,
but she told me, Hell, look, I'm making all these
(20:43):
new neighbor friends. But here's the deal, Like, I'm just
not interested in microwaving friendships. Yes, I want to take
my time and see who I want to connect with
and not just become friends with everybody in the neighborhood
because I'm new here. And I loved that she said
microwaving friendships. I feel like that's what can happen sometimes
and goes a little too fast and then you get
(21:05):
in a little too deep and you're like, oh no,
there really isn't a good connection here.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, Like slow down. I think there's something really beautiful
and like the zeitgeist right now that people are flowing
down and really reflecting on their friendships and taking inventory
of like who do I want the people in my
life to be around me? Because I will be like them.
I take after them. And I want to make sure
that these are people and women and men that value
(21:32):
integrity and that share and you know, are my moral
compass and have the same ethics. So yeah, be choosy,
like this is such an important time to be selfish
with who you're spending time with. We have the least,
we're spending the least amount of time with our friends
than ever before because we have the least amount of time,
which makes it all the more important that the people
(21:54):
that we are giving our precious friendship time to are
incredible people.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
So how do we nurture those five? And I'm sure
you know you said it's a spectrum. So for so,
I don't want anybody, Yes, I don't want anybody listening
right now to be like, oh shoot, okay, I have seven.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
I got to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yes, there's different tolerance for every like for some people,
like it's only two and for some people it's seven
to ten. It is again, it is a spectrum. I
love that you said that, Yes, like, do what is working?
Some people have, especially you know, thinking about enneagram numbers
or introversion extraversion, like they can just tolerate a lot more.
And some people who might come from more say like
(22:34):
trauma histories or something like that, Like closeness is really
hard and scary, and so it takes a long time
to get close, and so it's maybe only two or
three people in that inner circle.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
That's something that I realized in my deep therapy work
was that I wasn't great at connection. Yeah, and some
of that was from some emotional stuff and ways in
which emotionally there was some neglect as a child, and
I didn't really know how to nurture that. And so
I love that there's things like the friendship deck or
(23:05):
ways to connect and so share some examples from that
that would be helpful for someone to maybe reach out
to a friend today to try it out with, or
if they're going to dinner in the next week or
this weekend or something, they might be able to ask
a friend this question. Like a fun game like you
go around and ask a question.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Playing the friendship deck is great, But a question that
I love asking is a question is like what's something
you wish that I asked you about? More like what's
something that you want to talk about that I haven't
asked you about enough. I think that that's such a
great starting place because that will let you know so clearly,
like where are your friends at and what they're needing?
(23:44):
And I know that when people ask me, like when
a friend asks me that question, it's like, wait, they're
really caring, Like that's such a generous question. So even
just saying like, yeah, what would you like me to
ask you about? And it's brave too. I think that
it's you know, it's a vulnerable question because we if
you are on the receiving end of that question, I
think it'd be easy to say like, oh, I don't care,
(24:07):
da da da, But can you hold yourself to a
standard and can you hold yourself to be brave and
vulnerable enough to say, actually, like I would love if
you ask me more about this, Like, you know, I
mentioned earlier in Fertility that that we've struggled with and
that was a huge one is I wanted my friends
(24:27):
to ask me about it because I was always thinking
about it. It was incredibly lonely and it was incredibly difficult,
and it was just so helpful when I had a
friends that chose to be brave and kind of bridge
the gap and just say like how is that going,
Like what's happening? How's IVF going like, do you need
(24:47):
help with shots all of that? Because it just made
me feel so much less alone, and I think it, Yeah,
we can be brave with our friendships and just ask like,
what do you need more of? What would be helpful?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
In a similar vein, be brave is also sharing if
your feelings have been her in a way or something
was done, and that you can't actually have healthy conflict
with friends, and actually is conflict good in any relationship?
(25:26):
Is conflict good in any relationship?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
One hundred percent? My mentor used to say, this conflict
dealt with correctly breeds intimacy. And then I have another friends.
There's so much good work on conflict. I have another friend,
Jordan Dan. She's an incredible couples therapist. She says, conflict
is growth trying to happen. So we want conflict, we
just have to actually let it be felt above the
(25:51):
surface with our friends.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, so don't buy into the myth that if you're
really good friends then you should never fight.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Exactly. Yeah, when we hear fight, I think we often
go to like these knockout, gnarly places of like screaming
at each other and calling each other mean names. It's
not that a lot of times fighting or conflict can
be as simple but as scary to name. It's like, hey,
it really hurt my feelings that you didn't call me
on my birthday. A common thing that I hear is
(26:18):
when a friend becomes friends with someone new, of like, hey,
I'm really scared that this friend's like taking my place
over that I'm going to be forgotten about. Can we
talk about that? Just to name those things. If we
can commit to doing that, I think it will transform
our friendships and make them such safer places.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Do you think that some people at the beginning, like
I have some friends that are like, hey, look, I'm
just not the I don't remember people's birthday. I'm not
going it's just not me. Like, if that's what you need,
then like I can't do it. And I think I've
heard maybe Glennon Doyle say that she's kind of like that,
and you know our mutual friend Kat, She's kind of like, yeah,
I mean I get it. Life happens because I I've
(27:00):
been that person. I've had friends that have not reached
out online, but then I've been the friend and I
felt awful where it was, Oh, this is so their
birthday today and I completely messed up and it feels
so crappy, and then I regret not in the moment
acknowledging that.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
I just sort of was like, oh, shoot, here you go.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But maybe pausing to acknowledge, Gosh, that really must have
hurt your feelings. But I guess for me sometimes again
because I try not to make a big deal if
someone had forgotten mine. But I guess that's to minimize
my hurt. Probably huh, maybe, Okay, you're sliming at me
right now like a therapist. But again, different personalities, different things,
(27:45):
Like because of my brain and how it is, I've
had to be more diligent about putting everybody's birthday in
my calendar and making sure that I'm on top of it,
because what history has shown me is that if I don't,
then that I run the of missing someone's day.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
And gosh, times that I've done that, it feels awesome.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I feel good. This goes back to why I don't
think it is our job to remember everybody and their
mom's birthday, but our close people like those people and
are inner circle, we want to celebrate them really well,
and so yeah, making a point to put their birthdays
in your calendar to remember, or even saying to a
friend that if they don't do birthdays a lot, like
(28:27):
this would be a great place to let someone know,
like my birthday's coming up. We have not been friends
for a long time, but like my birthday is a
really big deal and I need you to celebrate me.
That's really important, and even stating your need as a
friend that that's really important to you, that that feels
really special to you. And we all make mistakes, like
we all forget, we all drop the ball. Being a
(28:48):
good friend is not at all about being a perfect friend.
Like our friendships if we really care for them or
can be really durable and they can hold apologies, and
I think it's us apologize and saying like, ah, I
am so sorry. That must have felt really bad that
I forgot your birthday and I want to hear about
what that was like for you. And if you need
(29:09):
to talk about it more, we can talk about it more.
But I do want to celebrate you. I am really sorry,
x y Z.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
That's brave. So but sometimes but again, so is saying.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
What you need.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
And that's any relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I know.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I keep bringing up our mutual friend cat, but She
was so proud of herself the other day. And I mean,
she's a therapist and she's married, and she was telling
me how she was so proud of herself for actually
telling him something that she really needed instead of just
not acknowledging it. Or it could be something as simple
as like, hey, do you want me to go pick
up bagels this morning? And I think her first thought
(29:45):
was like, oh, I don't want to put him. I
don't want him to have to do that, but she
really wanted a bagel. Yeah, she said, actually, yes, I
would love for you to go get us bagels. Who
knows what the circumstances were. She just didn't feel like
it was ideal, but it's really what she wanted. So
she said it and he went and he did it,
and it was great yes, because then she didn't have
resentment of like, oh I wish you would have gone
(30:05):
to get the bagels anyways, right something.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yes, leus therapist are still so human. I said this
to one of my best friends this week, is like
I'm working on stating my needs because she was asking
we infertility story. We were able to get pregnant through IVF,
so we're very excited about that and thinking about maternity leave,
and I was like, I need help, and so I
(30:28):
texted my friends because she was like, what do you
want me to get you? And I said, honestly, the
best gifts would be if you could come for a
week after baby is born and help. And that was
so because I'm like, she's a doctor, she has a
big life, and this is a big ask. Is it
too much to ask for? And she is so generous
and she's like, here are the dates that I can come,
(30:49):
and I was like, Oh, I'm so proud of myself
for doing this and for asking for what I needed.
This is going to be so much more meaningful than
any like fascinet she could have given me.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah, that's such a bat full example. I love it.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I went through infertility stuff too, and I know it's
not easy, and it was always awkward too, because so
many of my friends were getting pregnant around that time
and there was baby showers and oh right, it was
hard to talk about or say, oh, yay, I know
you're really happy that you just got a positive test,
but I just started my period and I have like
(31:23):
fifty negative tests in my bathroom, so I know it
can be a tricky thing. Yeah, so I'd love to
hear four things that you are currently thankful for.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
This is such a random one, but like, I am
so thankful for cold fresh fruit. That is all that
has been sounding good to me lately. So like I
have been crushing some pineapple lately. Pretty boring, but it
makes me happy. There's a new book that I just finished.
It is called BFF by Christy Tait, So especially if
(31:54):
any of this resonated with you, it is this incredible
memoir of this woman who writes so candidly about her
friendships and about how she feels like she is not
a good friend, and her and this friends that she
meets in one of her recovery meetings like join together
and decide to really start like taking inventory at their
(32:15):
friendships and looking at and exploring why they feel like
they haven't been good friends to both each other, to
people around them, to people in their past. And it
is so meaningful and so special, and yeah, I just
really recommend it to normalize for anybody that has been
struggling in their friendships or wants to be a better friend.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
I love that. Would you say it was called again?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It's called BFF by Christy Tait. Another thing would be
an Instagram follower or an Instagram follow that I'm so
grateful for and I'm so grateful for her resources. I
recommend her to my clients to follow, like she's incredible
and I am so grateful that she's now become a
friend of mine. Her name is Jordan Dan is Jordan
Dan with two inns, and she talks about couples and
(33:03):
relationships and somatic work, which is a lot of what
we just touched on working on your body. And she
just has so many incredible resources for you when it
comes to having healthier, more conscious, and more thoughtful relationships
that everyone can follow and learn and it's so great.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Oh I just pulled her up and I'm like, oh, yes.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yes, she's amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
This is a good follow. You know, Instagram, sometimes you
can be like, Okay, now this.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Ye I don't think I don't need to follow this.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, but no, I like now following so many different
things that are just going to give me a daily
dose of encouragement or information or something that I can
put in my toolbox or something I can reflect on
later or maybe journal about later or dig into later.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Oh, there's a lot here.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yes, you can hang out there for a long time.
There's some good stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
And then what's your Instagram? Where can people find you?
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Just put in a lot of a lot of letters Blake, Blanken,
Beckler and and I'll show up eventually. Just throw in
all those letters. But yes, that's my Instagram. And then
if you want to learn more about the friendship deck,
that one is an easier You can just go to
the friendshipdeck dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Well, thank you for helping us talk about friendship today
and what you do with your career and things you're
putting out into the world to put a spotlight on friendship,
because it's something that I know that I just wasn't
exposed too much and didn't really talk about. I sort
of just kind of didn't really put much work into it.
And now I'm in a season of life where I
(34:32):
want that more connection, that true connection. And so it's
refreshing to hear that it's okay if we don't have
a bajillion friends, because there's a spectrum and we can
on average only handle about five. And it's crazy that
also includes a significant other and a sibling, right Like.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
We just don't have that much. We're not as like
multifaceted as we think we do. We're more limited. But
I think if we do slow down and really dive
into a few friendships, you can go really beautiful places together.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Well, thank you, Blake, and best of luck with the baby.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Thank you, Bye bye
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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