Podcast Episode #114: The Importance of Friendships
Today Sharri discusses relationships, specifically friendships and why they are important to our health, our happiness, and overall wellbeing. She also talks about different types of friendships and why sometimes you must move on and leave a friendship behind so that you can make space for new friends. Listen in as Sharri shares how good quality friendships add value to our lives and play a big role in our happiness!
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Robert Waldinger: What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness | TED
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Podcast Episode #114: The Importance of Friendships
Welcome everyone to the Extraordinary Women Podcast. I’m Sharri Harmel, editor in chief of the extraordinary women magazine as well as your host for this podcast.
Today we are going to talk about relationships- specifically friendships and why they are important to our health, our happiness and overall wellbeing. We are also going to talk about the different types of friendships and why you sometimes must move on and leave a friendship behind so that you can make space for new friends.
So, let’s get started….
Let’s begin by agreeing that having friends is important. We all get that….
Research shows that friendships are as important as diet and exercise on our health.
Studies show that good quality friendships will lower blood pressure, lower BMI, and even lower inflammation and that benefit is across all age groups. The only caveat is that this health benefit applies only to emotionally healthy friendships. The other kind, that toxic friend, actually harms your health.
I’m reminded of John Rohn’s powerful quote that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” So applicable in this conversation.
Harvard has conducted a longitudinal study of human development over 75-years, which is forever in research time. The results strongly reinforce this value of friendships on our happiness, which in turn affects our health. Check out the TedX talk with Robert Waldinger, psychiatrist, Harvard Professor who leads this study. The information is in in the show notes.
Dr. Waldinger so clearly points out in this Ted talk, that the study found that what we think will make us happy, what we think will significantly contribute to our lives, such as money and achievement, often plays a much-reduced role in whether or not we have good friendships and experience happiness.
Because your health and happiness will trump everything else on the journey to make your dreams happen, you’ll only create an amazing next chapter when you are happy and healthy. Everything, therefore, points to the value of your friendships.
So let’s dive in…Let’s start with the fact that not all friendships are the same.
The widely successful motivational speaker Mel Robbins, states that she feels there are three types of friendships.
Friends for a reason.
Friends for a season.
Friends for a lifetime.
Let’s talk about each…
Friends for a reason are those work colleagues, parents of your children’s friends when they are young, or even friends you’ve made in a tour group or a specific project you worked on. Once the reason no longer exists, these friendships fade away because what you had in common, no longer exists. You changed jobs, your kids changed schools or grew up. The fundraiser you worked on is over. Friends for a reason are not deep friendships and consequently you don’t invest much in these friendships. Most of the time, you both recognize that the friendship is short-term and situational.
Let’s next talk about your friends for life- as Mel Robbins describes them. These are those good friends you can call anytime and share a good chat. You can talk about surface things or deep things because there is trust and therefore a willingness for you both to be vulnerable in those friendships. These might be the friends or a friend you have known for decades and supported each other through your many ups and downs in life. Most people have only one or two of these types of friends. I am blessed to have a couple of these friends.
The last category of friendships is what Mel Robbins calls the “friends for a season.” These friends come into our lives for a time that is as the name implies, a season of our life.
It might be when you move to a new neighborhood, have your first baby, start your professional career. These are seasons of life, and these friendships usually happen with people who are in a similar season.
You might be entering a new season when you experience a change in your life due to a divorce or the passing of your partner. Suddenly you are in a new season, whether you wanted to be or not.
Many women share with me that when they got divorced, the couple friendships they had while married, seemed to fade away and the same for those whose partner died. A new season for you, often unconsciously creates discomfort for people who knew you in a different season.
That is one of the reasons why “friends for a season” are sometimes the most confusing for us.
These are friendships created when people have some commonalities, similar life experiences or emotions that last a period of time- and it can be a long time. Then you enter a new season, or the other person enters into a new season, and subconsciously, different conversations are desired, conversations with different people around the new season. This is what can cause the confusing change in the friendship.
But because friends for a season can be incredibly close, much is often shared and therefore if one of the people in the friendship decides to move on because they are ready for a change- in essence are entering a new season, the other person can be left wondering what the heck happened.
Now you might be wondering what does this have to do with the EW podcast where we are all about women creating a fabulous next chapter? Well, when these friends for a season end with no obvious reason, we can want to hang on, we can be in hot pursuit to understand what exactly happened, and that desire to resolve what happened in the friendship will get in the way of you moving forward and making your plans and dreams for that next chapter.
This happened to me…. until I finally realized and accepted that I’d never know what the issue was, why this friend felt the need to move on…I was stuck chasing, and asking those around us, what happened. Once I figured out, we had been friends for a season and the season had shifted, I could move forward and accept that I didn’t need to know the why.
Friendships are relationships….and as we all know, relationships can be messy, confusing, fun, exciting, hilarious, challenging and soul expanding.
So, why does it matter if you don’t know why a friendship for a season ended? Logically, we all know it doesn’t matter. But emotionally, when a relationship ends and you don’t know why, it feels like rejection and rejection will eat you up if you let it.
Rejection triggers our innate desire to be liked, valued, and cared about and makes us feel insecure in the world.
That is often the core reason we will often keep trying to fix a friendship that has ended or at least try to understand the why.
Yet the reality is when a friendship ends, you’ve probably entered a new season…and have gradually been doing so for a while now. Suddenly one of you realizes things have changed and chooses to end your friendship. Recognize that this was happening over a period of time. Little things said that feel uncomfortable, start happening more often. At first you might think it’s just a bad time, but as it happens more often, recognize that the seasons are changing, and the friendship might be becoming something different or ending all together.
But this podcast is about you, and how you can take care of yourself so that you can step into that fabulous next chapter that you want. So rather than chase after that friend or that relationship, let it go.
Accept that you are entering into a new season and then step back and look at that friend for a season through the lens of gratitude.
What were the gifts of that relationship or friendship? What did you learn by being in that relationship? How did that relationship change you?
Gratitude releases you from the grip of regret. I even went through this exercise after my 23-year marriage ended and it shifts your thoughts and feelings about that person, that relationship.
When you can see and acknowledge the benefits of an ended relationship or friendship, we can move on. You’ll actually feel the release in your body.
And once you do that- release the friendships that are no longer in the season you are in- you’ll be open to new friendships.
Our next chapters are about embracing something new. And often that will mean you need new friends- friends who are in the same space that you are and where you want to be. You have to give yourself permission to let go of the old friends that you were so close to at one point in your life but no longer are on the same path as you. Not every woman is interested in designing and living a fabulous next chapter. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is, and you need to connect with like-minded women so that you are supported to uplevel your own vision and actions as you enter this new season.
Friendships fade- that is a fact.
If that sounds awful- I’m suggesting that those friends probably feel the same way as you.
They too are probably feeling you have less in common, want less of the same things, so let’s be flexible enough to let some of our former friendships fade.
But how to find those new friends? How to find other women who are also interested in creating fabulous next chapters?
Well, it’s certainly not as easy as it was when your kids were young, or you were single and beginning your professional life. And sometimes friends for a reason become friends for a season and even lifelong friends. Great! But that doesn’t always happen. So, if you’re a woman of a certain age- and looking to make friends, it’s not impossible, but it takes much more effort. Honestly, I have to look at it almost like an experiment or this introvert won’t ever leave her apartment!
Make a game out of it. Tell yourself, I’m going to show up at things or activities by myself and see if I meet anyone interesting. Another idea might be that you try out reconnecting with someone you met a while ago and see if you have anything in common.
This friend finding process (similar to dating) is sort of like going fishing. I’m not a fisherman, but my father was and all I can remember is sitting in the boat, putting out multiple lines and waiting to see if a fish would bite. It was laborious because very few fish were ever caught.
Same for good friends. You are essentially fishing for friends. You are putting out multiple friend lines….and going to see if there are any potential friends out there.
There will be times that you wonder if you’ll ever find new friends. (I felt the same way sitting in the boat with my father…I was sure there wasn’t one hungry fish in the lake.)
But sometimes friends show up in the least likely of places. In Paris, I assumed it would be the American expat group where I’d make good friends but my two best friends in Paris came from unlikely sources. One is a Brit who helped me decorate my apartment and the other is a Parisian woman who owns a French couture lingerie house who I met over 7 years ago when she made me my first couture bra. Both friendships started out as professional relationships, but as time went on, we began to share more of our lives and became friends. Both women are smart, interesting, always pushing forward and frankly extraordinary women…. I cherish both of them. They make me imagine a bigger dream….and we need to be around people like that- remember, we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with!
So here are my top 5 tips for making friends…
- You have to get uncomfortable- push yourself to get off the sofa, get out of the house, go to things when you don’t feel like it. Like I said, if you’re an introvert like me this one is hard, but you’ll never make a friend while sitting in your home.
- Figure out what activities you enjoy. Try out everything that looks interesting. In the process, you’ll figure out what you like best and then meet other people who enjoy the same activities. Welcome in different ages, men as well as women, different cultural backgrounds…. mix it up, be curious and make it fun.
- Remember, it’s all in your head. What you think matters and if you believe you’ll never make new friends, you won’t. You’ll attract whatever it is that you believe. This reminds me of the interview with Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. It was just a short time period before Gloria died, but there she was, well into her 80’s and saying…I know there is another new adventure for me just around the corner. What a gal.
- Be persistent- don’t give up. Like the fishing metaphor, one day in a boat doesn’t make a fisherman. So be persistent and creative. One day or one week or even one month of not making a potential new friend doesn’t determine whether or not you’ll ever make new friends at this season of your life. Keep on- Keeping on.
- And last, remember, sometimes friends for a reason or friends for a season become lifelong friends, but be flexible enough to let go of friendships that no longer work so that you have the space and the energy for new friends.
I’ve enjoyed ending our podcasts with a quote and the one for today again, is not attributed to any author but so poignant.
“A true friend accepts who you are, but also helps you become who you should be.”
Ladies, the Extraordinary Women Podcast AND Magazine are all about supporting you.
We are a new generation of women who are not going to quietly fade into our next chapters, but actually, design a fabulous it, making sure it energizes us, gives us purpose and fulfillment but also joy.
A subscription to the Extraordinary Women Magazine is free so don’t hesitate, don’t procrastinate…subscribe now.
Thank you for joining us today….and look forward to our next Extraordinary Women Podcast.
Have a great week and see you soon…. A bientot.
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