Navigating Friendship Breakdowns
Transcript of the episode recording:
Hey, big f*cking dreamers. I am so pumped to be here with you today. It has been a long time. This is my first recording back from LA and Mexico. I was overseas for about a month and peek behind the curtain. I did a lot of batch podcast recording, so I haven't recorded an episode. I am also just fresh off a presentation with Pinterest. I just did a presentation on big confidence with women at Pinterest. was just a f*cking phenomenal event. I love public speaking. This is what I've wanted to do. This is kind of what I feel like my mission on Earth is. And I have been thinking a lot about mission and purpose and what it is that my business is doing.
And it's something that I haven't necessarily cracked. I feel like it's something that bothers me a lot, actually, and something that I think about because my coaching practice is filled with so many different things. It's almost like I do life coaching. I do career coaching. I do executive coaching. And I know I'm very skilled at all three of those things, but it's almost like I haven't necessarily picked a niche or like picked what it is that I do. And it's something that has kind of perplexed me for a really long time. I was speaking about it to my therapist of like, what is this need for certainty or what is it that I'm doing in the world?
And I think I'm getting, I think I am getting closer to figuring it out. And I know it's something like, understanding and normalizing conversations around self-doubt conversations around emotional intelligence and normalizing that in the workplace because our histories, our personal histories deeply impact our professional histories. And we can't just pretend like we come to work and we're wiped free of any sort of relational histories and what happened in our family systems and what happened in our romantic relationships doesn't impact the way that we show up in the workplace.
I know it's almost about like bringing emotional literacy to the workplace. And I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to figuring it out. But that was just a little bit of a segue of something that I am thinking about. And when I got back kind of switching gears here, when I got back from Mexico City, I almost like fell into a bit of a funk. And I felt like Mexico City is so vibrant and so full of life. And there's people on the street corners like selling food and there's people playing games in the street. And it's just the city that's like thrumming, like throbbing with life and vitality. And then I got back to Sydney and I live in Paddington. was like, everything is just so perfect and these perfect little houses and these perfect little boxes. And it all just felt so beige to me.
And I said that to Chris, my fiance, like I'm feeling like it's just quite beige and I don't really know what it is and I'm not necessarily like full of inspiration here. And then I thought about that a bit more and also about how it's my responsibility to be inspired. It's my responsibility to create art. If I want inspiration, I need to go seek it out.
So that was kind of one component of the radical self responsibility of, OK, if I want to live a life that's full of light, art and full of vibrancy and that's very interesting and dynamic, then I then need to be putting myself in those places. But then I thought in these past eight to nine years, there's been a lot of struggle in my life. And it was, you know, I got really sick. had an autoimmune disease. couldn't really walk for a few months. I had to take time off of work. Then I got sober. And then that was a whole transition. And then it was dealing with burnout. And then it was looking at like overcoming PTSD. And it was kind of all these things one after another. And today I look at my life and I don't have any of that. And I know it will come. It always it always kind of comes for us. That's how life works.
But my problems today are so quality to what they used to be. And I was like, wow, what a privilege it is to be almost looking at my life and wanting it to be more vibrant and having that be the problem today of like, how could I make my life more interesting and dynamic? How can I get more art into my life? How can I get more creativity into my life? How do I make sure that I stick to my writing practice?
And the problem isn't like, how do I get sober? How do I overcome PTSD? How do I try to survive? And it was a reflection moment of like, wow, I've really come such a far f*cking way. And I'm so proud of myself for everything that I've come. On a side note, my cousin told me that her husband listens to my podcast. And he was like, wow, she really cusses a lot. And then my cousin was like, have you met our family? So anyway, Jack, if you're listening, hey. I'm trying not to cuss a lot.
But actually, f*ck that, that's just kind of who I am. But anyway, thinking about that it's such a privilege to be where I am and to have the problems and that I'm so proud of myself that these are my problems today and that, you know, trading in lower quality problems for better quality problems is really quite an amazing thing in life. So that's just a bit of a tangent, a bit of a personal update before we get into really what's up to today's episode. if you are listening to this episode, there are a few things.
One, have you implemented anything in your life that you feel like has really changed it? I would love to feature you as big f*cking dreamer of the week. So if you are a big f*cking dreamer and you're implementing these things and these things are changing your life, then I want to hear from you. Send me a DM at Hannah Mae Kissel on Instagram or at Hannah Kissel on Instagram or on LinkedIn. Let me hear from you and I'd love to feature you.
And then another one is we have now surpa*sed over a thousand, I don't know, it's like downloads or subscribers. I don't really pay attention to the data that much, but there's a thousand of something, which is so exciting. So I'm really like so stoked about that. Something you can do to help me as a small business owner, if you are getting value, I'd love it if you shared this story on your Instagram, if you got anything from it, tag me in it, spread the message, tell a friend. That's kind of the currency, how you can help support this podcast so it keeps growing. So I'd love for you to do that. All right, now we are going to get into the meat of the episode, which is talking about friendship breakdowns.
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So friendship breakdowns, it's something that doesn't really get a lot of airtime, I've noticed, and it is something that impacts people very significantly. And I find that relationship breakdowns, even like job breakdowns, switching jobs, or being redundant, or quitting, or losing a romantic partner, or even family relationships.
But friendships don't tend to get a lot of airtime or a lot of necessarily understanding for how much weight that they can bring to our lives. I have found through coaching as well as through my own life that going through and being in your 30s, tends to happen and friendships tend to shift and change around this time. And it could be a big thing.
I've noticed that weddings is a big thing of people being invited to weddings, people not being invited to weddings. It's a real reflection point of looking at who is important in your life, who is not important in your life. Maybe not necessarily not even important. There could be different reasons, but I have seen weddings be a huge point of discussion and a huge tension of, do I want this friendship to continue or are people feeling extremely hurt for not inviting to weddings?
Another thing is changing family dynamics happening in your 30s. So people are starting families. People are getting married. People are doing different things or they're going back to school or their situation in life has changing and not shifting the amount of time available for friends. And then another thing that I see also is just values changing.
And typically when people enter their 30s, they're not drinking as much. They're not parting as much. They're starting to look at what are their values, who's going to support them in that, what are their dreams, what do they want their career to look like, what is their creativity looking like, how do they want to inspire themselves. So it's really then friendship breakdowns are typically then a misalignment of values happening.
And in my own life, I've never really had a lot of friendship ruptures. I've never had volatile friendships. That's just not really part of my friendship history. But then I did have two friendship breakdowns, two significant friendship breakdowns a few years back. Maybe it was three years back and it was in quite a short succession. And one of them, the friendship, you I had chosen to end the friendship. It wasn't working for me for a few reasons. And then someone chose to end a friendship with me. And that really shocked me. And it like completely f*cking rocked me for a very long time. And it was it. I feel like I've actually just kind of come out of it in the past year where I feel like I've put myself out there with friends again. But it was so interesting because it was almost something that I didn't necessarily know how much it impacted me.
And I've seen this a lot with people I coach as well about how much friendship breakdowns. And how much friendship shifts and changes can really have such a huge impact on people. And what do you do with it? What do you put? And so it can be just as hard or even worse as a romantic relationship breakdown. Because I have found that typically sometimes you will have more in common with their friends than they do with their partners. They feel like they can almost be all sides with of themselves.
And so I want to just give some people like some guidance on how to navigate friendship breakdowns and some things to think about if you are having difficulty with friendships in this time in your life. And the first one is just understanding like what are the patterns of friendships that you're attracting into your life?
If friendship dynamics are something that have been challenging for you over the past couple of years or even of your whole life's really understanding what are the dynamics here? So what are the patterns? And I would actually do a relationship inventory on this. I've created a, if you want, if you're curious about this, I've actually created a resource. So DM me saying friendship or comment on the Instagram post that this goes out on or even respond to my email marketing around this. And I'm going to give you a worksheet around this. But what I would actually do is do a relationship inventory on your friendships.
And typically what happens is that there are patterns that keep popping up over and over again, and there are red flags that keep popping up that people don't necessarily realize. So it's very similar to relationship patterns, romantic relationship patterns, where you could also be attracting the same type of friendship in these dynamics. So you could attract friends that let's say you feel like you're always investing more time than they invest into you. So you're always the one reaching out. You're always the one like that's initiating the friendship. Or it could be attracting friends that kind of always put you down and friends that always make slight little digs. You're always the butt of the joke. You feel like you you're kind of the comic relief of the group or even in that dynamic. Or it could be friends that don't really support your dreams or even friends that really love to come to you, all they do is vent, all you do is vent with them, and the basis of your relationship is almost like complaining, trauma bonding.
And so it's understanding that, okay, what are the friendship, what are your friendship dynamics, how are they playing out over and over again, and are there any things that you need to realize that you're also contributing to? And so sometimes I think that with friendship breakdowns, it can be all about like any relationship, understanding what have I contributed to this? Where am I also at part here? What were the red flags that I ignored in this friendship earlier on? What were the things that I did or did not do that have contributed to the friendship breaking down? And then what I have seen as well is like a a real shift in people's friendships as they go into their thirties.
And sometimes when people almost looking at friendships in categories. When people tend to get hurt is when, let's say, people aren't necessarily meeting their expectations of what the friendship is. So you feel like there is a friend that you are kind of putting in your tier one category. Maybe you think they're one of my best friends, but they're not really reciprocating. They're not really giving you the time that you want or the time that you need. There's really unmet needs and expectations there in friendship. And what I would do is actually consider almost in your mind, moving them to a different category in friendship.
So if they then occupy, you know, tier one of friendship and you're saying I'm going to actually move them into tier two. They're not really like a tier one friend anymore. They're almost like a tier two friendship. And saying that that's okay as well, you could decide to also, you know, completely break off the friendship, but you might not want to do that. They might be have been a lifelong friend or they might be someone that you wanna keep into your life, but it actually could just be about shifting expectations to say, okay, this isn't a tier one friendship, this is a tier two friendship.
And typically, when people do that, there is like some relief. And I've actually had to do that with a few friends, know, some kind of recently where they were, you know, they did occupy my tier one friendship, but then, our values started to change, the way we lived our life started to change, the things that we wanted to do started to change. We didn't have as much similar interests, but I still really love and care about this person. So in my mind, it was actually like, okay, this is not necessarily a tier one friendship for me anymore. It doesn't mean that I love this person any less, but they occupy tier two friendship. It means that I don't necessarily invest as much mental time, mental energy.I focus on other friendships that I find a bit more nourishing to me.
And just knowing that that's okay. And it's okay for relationships to shift. And I think that especially with friendships, people think like, okay, well, they were my best friend. Like they were my best friend growing up or they were my best friend at this really typical time. And just knowing that just because they were a really close friend at one period of your life, it's okay if they're not going to be another friend at close periods of your life. But also knowing and giving the freedom and flexibility for friendships to also come back together.
Because there have been multiple times in my life where friendships have kind of ebbed and flowed and we have kind of gone away and then we've come back together and it's been really beautiful. We've both grown and then reconciled it. So another thing that I would ask yourself is almost like what invisible expectations are you putting on your friends? So if you feel like you are consistently let down in relationships, really getting clear on like what are the expectations that you are putting on your friends and is that fair or not?
And if they're consistently not meeting your expectations and you're consistently let down by these friends, then also knowing that that's a you issue. Because again, and this is one of my favorite phrases, you're going to the hardware store for milk. If a friend can't be there for you on a consistent basis, yet you keep expecting them to be, that's actual insanity. And so really getting clear on who are the people in your life that can meet your needs, that can meet your expectations.
Also, if there are no people in your life that can meet your needs or expectations or you're continually being let down by people or disappointed in people or you want more from people, that is an indication that some deeper work needs to be done either with a coach or a therapist. There's something deeper going on there. So I would just say, you know, really look into that if your needs aren't being met. I've had a few clients actually who I've worked on friendship with quite a bit.
And one of my clients, remember her, she was coming to me and she was just saying like, she really cares about her friendships so much. And she's such a deep feeler and thinker and she's a really talented, amazing woman. And she just felt like she was carrying all of her friendships. Like she was giving so much to them and not necessarily getting a lot back. And she felt like the friendships would kind of dissipate if she didn't really put a lot of the effort in.
And what we had to do is we did a lot of internal family systems therapy on this. And we looked at what is the part of her that keeps giving to people when they don't really reciprocate? What is the part of her that also thinks that she has to caretaker, that also thinks that she has to, you know, always be taking care of people, always be calling them when they're down, always be making sure they were looked after, even though these women were like in their 30s and 40s. These women were adults. They knew how to do that. Yet.
My client just thought that she was the one that always had to do that. So we had to work on internal family systems therapy on that part of her that felt like it was really driving her forward to make these decisions. Once we resolved that part of her, it was just like night and day. And I think that that is because she has realized that she doesn't need to take care of people.
Friendships can kind of come and go. It's a lot less heavy. There's a lot of freedom around it. It's light. And what's interesting about that is her energy's totally shifted. So then people, more people are coming into her life. More people are actually realizing that, you know, more friends, like friends have started reciprocating, but also a lot of friends have fallen away. And that's okay too. And knowing that it's okay if your friends fall away, if you feel like you're putting in all of the effort, but you don't necessarily want to carry the friendship anymore.
then you don't have to and see who falls away and see who stays. And the last thing I would say is that if you are going through a friendship breakdown or you're having a lot of changes in your friendship, knowing that if a friendship does break down, it is totally okay to grieve. And that's actually part of it. And that's actually natural because these are really significant relationships and giving it the proper breathing time, going to a coach about it, talking to people about it, not just shutting down about it. Because if there is a friendship breakdown, then that is likely a significant relationship in your life. like any, if any relationship ended, it would be hard. So knowing that it's actually quite common, you're definitely not alone.
If you feel like this was helpful, I'd love to give you a resource that I created all around this. And if you want to look at your friendship inventory, if you want to look at what is your part in this, if you want to have stronger friendships as well, if you just want to have stronger relationships, I did make a worksheet about this, DM me saying friendship, I'd love to give it to you or comment on the post that this is on and let me know if this was helpful. Send me a DM about it, me a text about it if you have my number. If you don't, I definitely won't be giving it out here, but send me a DM about it. I'd love to hear from you. And I hope that you have a great day, big f*cking dreamers, and I will see you next week.