Latest / Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship / #201 - A Softer Way to Think About Friendships That Faded (Rebecca Kotok)

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#201 - A Softer Way to Think About Friendships That Faded (Rebecca Kotok) · Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

0:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Dear Nina Conversations about Friendship.
0:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I am your host, Nina Badsin.
0:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Writing about Friendship for over 13 years now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Today's guest is one of my very best friends.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the most popular guests on five years of this podcast that is Rebecca Kotak.
0:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks, you could say hi.
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, means, hi, everybody.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, listeners.
0:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Rebecca was on episode 34, which is really a replay of what I think might have been like episode 7 8 or 9.
0:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not even going to look that up because 34 was the replay of it.
0:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It was about our friendship break up and reconciliation.
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Those two episodes separately because they have different titles, so I think SEO searches reach different people in different ways.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Those two episodes are two of my most popular episodes, five years later, and people find them again, and again, they listen to them.
0:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it brings people to the podcast.
0:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it makes people become the centers of regular followers.
0:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love if you could, well, first tell us exactly who you are and what you do.
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: then let's reflect on why that episode was so popular.
1:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But first, Rebecca Kotak, what do you do?
1:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a public school counselor in Montgomery County, Maryland.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been a counselor in during my 13th year.
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a career change for me.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I went back and got my nasters in school counseling.
1:22
[SPEAKER_00]: about 13 years ago before that I was home with my kids and before that I worked in fundraising events and public relations, but this is really my calling and this is my fifth baby because I have four actual children, none of whom are babies anymore.
1:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm the mom of four, the wife of one, the dog mom of one, and school counselor 2,500 lovely children in Montgomery County, Maryland.
1:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Rebecca and I are friends from college.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We met freshman year at Washington University in
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: her years ago.
1:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh our episode number 34 again for people listening and want to go back to it is about how we were the best best friends.
1:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then junior year it was tense for all the reasons you can go back to that episode unless and we won't rehash at all.
2:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We did not speak for a few years.
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You weren't even at my wedding.
2:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We reconciled at our mutual bestie Julie's wedding.
2:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Shout out to Julie.
2:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been smooth sailing ever since.
2:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been friends much longer than we have it.
2:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you
2:20
[SPEAKER_01]: is so popular still.
2:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do I think it resonated?
2:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a lot of shame around friendship breakups.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people wonder what it reflects about them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I can only speak for myself.
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had shame around it.
2:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can imagine other people did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that it resonated.
2:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Often friendship breakups day broken up.
2:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think the facts that like we came back together.
2:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it took a lot on your part and my part.
2:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then collectively.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so much has to happen.
2:49
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't living in the same place when we got that together.
2:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So we really both had to want it.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, honestly, you know, your podcast really celebrates friendship even when you're working at all of my new set.
2:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think our episode is one big celebration of true friendship.
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I love how we met.
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it more than the story of how I met my husband who I loved you.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been how we met.
3:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yes.
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a me cute.
3:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It was love at first sight.
3:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we both remember my opening love.
3:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you're from America.
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I scored an island perk and then we didn't separate for two full years and we were each other's person.
3:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You described it so well like in the way that that happens in college when you're away from home.
3:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's a celebration of true love, really.
3:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a celebration of friendship.
3:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, there's other friendship podcasts that have come and gone some still around where they almost every episode.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is no shade to them.
3:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just I don't do it this way where every episode is somebody's real friendship.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Not the host necessarily.
3:40
[SPEAKER_01]: They bring on tube guests.
3:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I get a lot of pictures like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and I always refer them to these other hosts.
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to be collaborative like that in the podcast space, but it's not for me.
3:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It worked for our episode, but I actually find that listeners at Lisa of Deer Nina, they are not necessarily coming to hear these big success stories of other people.
3:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always like, how is this going to help the listener when people pitch me?
4:02
[SPEAKER_01]: People don't come to this show to only celebrate friendship.
4:05
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to work?
4:06
[SPEAKER_01]: through problems and make their friendships better and easier and that is why today's topic is so on the money when you mentioned to me that you had these thoughts as we're approaching 50 maybe for you because I'm just old in the grade and you're young in the grade there are so many things we know about friendship now as we approach 50 that we did not know in our 20s or our 30s or our 40s
4:28
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing you've discovered as you told me when you had this idea of mine is some of this can't be forced because it happens with age and experience, but I feel like what we want to try to do is help people maybe get to a frame of mind where they could not have to wait all the way until 50 wouldn't that be nice and maybe it won't work but we can certainly at least try.
4:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, the way I described it to you initially, and I think you understood because you know me so well, I noticed the shift as I turned 40, just about not giving an F anymore, and I think that was like a common thing that people talk about, but I did notice that as I turned 40.
5:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that I turn 50, I noticed something in the way that it shows up in friendships, which is a softening.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not specifically a friendship related phenomenon.
5:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually think it's a perspective related phenomenon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Action, aging related phenomenon where and there is science behind it.
5:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned after I started feeling it, I started going back to my books and researching and remembering all these theories.
5:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So basically the way I would describe it is as we get older.
5:31
[SPEAKER_00]: For many different reasons, and I think we're going to get into those, life has just humbled me and many of us because of that and because of the way that time maybe a bit more time is behind us and is in front of us, not like we're 90, but at the same time we're not exactly spring chickens and so I do think that I actually reframe and perceive my friendships past and present differently.
5:56
[SPEAKER_00]: and more softly and more kindly and more compassionately and more generous of spirit than I did for really the past 48 years, if you will.
6:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It's important for me to say what it isn't.
6:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So this isn't about oh my gosh, I have a huge heart, and I'm opening it up to everyone, and I'm inviting the new mom on the block.
6:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It manifests in quite the opposite sort of the social pruning that does
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: come along with being close to 50.
6:20
[SPEAKER_00]: That is alive and well with me.
6:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I have definitely have less, more meaningful friendships than I did when I was 35.
6:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not necessarily reconnecting with people with whom I've lost touch with or had a little bit of a risk with, but it's more about my perspective towards the people in my life.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: past and present and about how as I go towards 50, I noticed was a really subtle and it didn't take effort.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't like, oh, I should really think more positively.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just this overwhelming sense of gosh, my mindset has changed and when your mindset changes, the way you experience life changes and it's been a really peaceful and positive change for me and I just wanted to talk about it
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel it too and I'll be so curious to see how listeners respond because it is a little countercultural in a positive way.
7:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's what I try to have this show be, which is not to do the lowest hanging fruit concept of this person's quote unquote toxic or this cut out culture, which is different than cancel culture.
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You use the word humbled by life.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel that too, like it takes
7:28
[SPEAKER_01]: also a lot of humility to realize I probably don't know everything in this situation whatever this is.
7:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a guest who I love anime.
7:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the title of that episode was something like the 10% rule.
7:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This idea that if you could hold that that person may be 10% right.
7:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The person you're upset with.
7:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Like to just know way they aren't tying themselves their own story.
7:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And this doesn't mean that everyone is right.
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So Apple what about it for me?
7:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's exactly
7:57
[SPEAKER_00]: exchanging certainty and the need to be right for peace and curiosity.
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's instead of rehashing and reliving it's releasing.
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: All of that.
8:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'll be very clear.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Boundaries are important and there are people who have violated those boundaries.
8:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a mental health practitioner, I would never advocate a mindset or a theory that says, oh, let everybody in.
8:19
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not that, but it's releasing yourself
8:24
[SPEAKER_00]: because like we're both, if we could have done that, like it was so perfectly said, that I also really do think that, okay, this is very cliche, but it has so much meaning wherever you are, there you are and you may not have gotten there.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of me wonders, you and I did have a lot of just feelings and if we hadn't taken that break and had such a dramatic end to it, maybe we wouldn't be this close.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd probably be in touch, but maybe we wouldn't have been this close.
8:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm okay with the way it happened, because of the way it ended.
8:53
[SPEAKER_00]: When I think back, you know, like in our 30s and 40s, the friendships that we are making, we were in a stage where we were building, okay, we were building our careers.
9:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We were building our families and not everyone was building a career or a family, but whatever we were doing, we were building a reputation, building a life.
9:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Our goals were usually about more, and it didn't necessarily mean more.
9:12
[SPEAKER_00]: financially, although it could for some, more kids, more financially, more out of this, more out of life, more adventures.
9:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, then life humbles you, right?
9:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So things happen to you, to those around you are cohort, right?
9:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So this all the examples I'm going to give are not specifically thank God about me, but about our cohort.
9:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We have birth children, we have raised children with special needs.
9:34
[SPEAKER_00]: We have watched
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: friends, marriages, fall apart.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've watched our own marriages, fall apart.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've had financial security, financial insecurity.
9:41
[SPEAKER_00]: People's homes have been foreclosed.
9:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, all these things have happened to people close to me.
9:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God, not all these things to one person.
9:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But these are all examples.
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure from your community as well, when you're in community with people, all these things happen.
9:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But for a bit, people have buried a child, you and I recently,
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[SPEAKER_00]: very to friend, Jill Smokler, and so all these things have happened and life just has a way of humbling you.
10:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're building your building, you get humbled.
10:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's just now that my kids are older, I've had this time now to make meaning of all of that, make meaning of all the striving and the building, and then the humbling, and then where does that kind of leave me?
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It leaves me again with this feeling that I don't need to always be right.
10:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to rehash wrongs.
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I have more generosity of spirit.
10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to, oh, I'm going out.
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope I don't see this person or that person.
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I see them.
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, hey, wow, like you were in my head, the conversation is, that she was dealing with a lot.
10:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I heard her kid had a really tough time, or I heard her.
10:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, where they might say they heard something about me and in their own mind, right?
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just see these people and it's like we were in battle together.
10:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And now whether we've lost touch or are still in touch, I just have so much, I have more love for people generally, not specific people.
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But generally, just for humanity, that everyone is fighting some sort of battle.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't know what that is.
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I attribute things that happen or perceive slights.
11:02
[SPEAKER_00]: much less to their character and much more to what they were carrying.
11:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, beautifully said.
11:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I just went to pause on that for a second.
11:10
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so well said.
11:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is a healthier and I want to say easier way to walk around the world.
11:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's seem like it because it takes some mental work.
11:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's much harder on your body, your mind, your other relationships to walk around.
11:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Angry all the time, but people who aren't even close to you anymore, because what I hear you saying, and I appreciate it, is you don't have to let every person back in your life who wrong you in some way, it's more about that focusing on it so much, especially if they're not good friends of you anymore.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: If somebody is not close to you anymore, and you're not looking to reconcile, what is the point of walking around, so angry at all these people who used to be friends who aren't friends, and I like to keep it focused on friends not family, because that's just like a whole different thing.
11:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I thought back, I'm okay clinically, sort of like from a brain science and neuroscience point of view.
11:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I came across two things that I had forgotten about that I had learned about in my studies.
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And one is the positivity effect, and there is a study that
12:08
[SPEAKER_00]: as people get older, they're brain processes positive stimuli more than negative.
12:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're actually more inclined to see things positively.
12:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about this because sometimes my mom will say, gosh, you guys were just a pleasure every day and you know that's a thought and I just sometimes I'll call my sister and I'm like, Mom was really stressed and we had frozen blinses a lot, right?
12:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, yeah, I'm like, okay, because she's trying to be all
12:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, but I think that's part of what it is.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like selective memory, but it's just focusing more on the positive.
12:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And that surprised me when I read, discovered that theory because I've always heard oh, as people get older, they get more entrenched.
12:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm very pleased for me that that hasn't happened.
12:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I've become less certain, less entrenched in my views.
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: more curious, but definitely see things more positively.
13:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the other one is the socio-emotional selectivity theory.
13:05
[SPEAKER_00]: But it kind of talks about as we perceive that the time in front of us is less than we perceive 10 years ago.
13:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I know time in front of us is always less than the day before.
13:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I get that.
13:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we more philosophically understand that we're entering a different phase, we move from
13:22
[SPEAKER_00]: goals of achieving knowledge or attaining success and more towards goals of making meaning.
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think you see this writ large in the world where you have these like really wealthy people and they go to like a yoga retreat.
13:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We learn off to talk for three days and it's like you could have done that but you were chasing all of this stuff.
13:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think the chasing it's not over.
13:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I still feel very ambitious in my career.
13:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I may have a second chapter.
13:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, of something even bigger.
13:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
13:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not about the loss of ambition, but I wouldn't call this subtle shift either.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a significant shift from attaining to making meaning.
13:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that what this shift looks like in friendships is one reframing and rep receiving.
14:00
[SPEAKER_00]: past situations.
14:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's not necessarily even having conversations with anybody about those things, but it's just in your own mind because I mean as a therapist, I know that your mind shapes your reality, your mind shapes your behavior, which shapes your interactions, which shapes how you go about your day.
14:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Just that shift in my mind of it's not just even letting go of anger, it's just a more peaceful, more generous of spirit way of looking at things, seeing the positive, seeing, you know, taking the humbling and what
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It allows me to just see my past, you know, really calm peaceful way.
14:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's one thing and about friendships, right?
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll look at friendships that just may have not gone the way I wanted them to or I may have some animosity or whatnot.
14:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I can let that go and really think more about the positive interactions with that person or the reasons why they may not have been so positive.
14:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It can look like reconciliation.
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So while that is not the purpose of this,
14:52
[SPEAKER_00]: it can look like that.
14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I have found that for me, it's not big reconciliation, it's like you and I had.
14:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that was pretty dramatic.
15:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more so like, I'll run into somebody who we just kind of drifted, not because of a big rift, but because of a season of friendship kind of ended, the kids aged out of that preschool or the person you moved or the person moved or whatnot.
15:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll see them and we want to reconnect just for a coffee.
15:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a permanent reigniting of the
15:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's reconnecting and I saw this also when my dad recently passed away and the people who showed up for Shiva.
15:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to think to myself and I would see my parents, they'd be going out.
15:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So someone's Shiva are they going to a funeral night.
15:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, who is this person?
15:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do they have meaning to you?
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you taking time out of your night to go there?
15:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, how myopic is that?
15:37
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a kid, right?
15:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't understand.
15:39
[SPEAKER_00]: They had this whole universe.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Before kids, when they were little,
15:42
[SPEAKER_00]: and to have those deep friendships now, it's just very meaningful to have people show up for you and that has brought me a lot of peace and a lot of comfort at a time that was really hard.
15:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the opportunity to show it for people in that way.
15:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not a huge commitment, but it's a meaningful commitment.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Backs, I hear from a lot of people of varying ages who I do think are walking around with a lot of resentment towards friends who drifted from them in some way with no explanation.
16:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And they are not able to see it as the way you described it earlier, which I thought was really nice and healthy.
16:18
[SPEAKER_01]: which not everybody can get there, which is okay, somebody moved or our kids moved schools or I'm my job, got busier, her job, got busier, and instead of seeing that with a matter of factness and like a fact of life, they see it as they were abandoned in some way, they put all this time into this friendship and the other person didn't meet them.
16:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm putting in this amount this person didn't, now we're not friends because I decided to test them and I decided not to
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean we go through periods, I just think of us because it's great to be able to use a real example where one of us is texting a lot more than the other, one of us calling a lot more than the other, and we have gotten to a point in our friendship where we're able to just kind of shrug the shoulders on that, and be like, okay, she'll get back to me when she can.
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It really isn't, I will say a better way to go through life.
17:03
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot less strife, thank goodness we both have gotten there because we are still friends, and I'm that way with a lot of other friends too, not just with you.
17:10
[SPEAKER_01]: That every one, sometimes you're giving so, so much that you're just like, okay, that's too much.
17:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I talk about that a lot in the podcast.
17:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You and I have gotten to that place with each other and with other people, perhaps naturally through time.
17:24
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you say to people who maybe haven't gotten there naturally, but you and I are making the argument that it actually is an easier way to go through life?
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: How can people force themselves into this mindset?
17:36
[SPEAKER_01]: What would that process look like?
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: think there is another way and it came naturally to me through my life span, right?
17:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
17:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're always changing and developing.
17:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We think of development as occurring in your adolescence, but actually you're going to a developmental stages throughout your adulthood as well.
17:52
[SPEAKER_00]: For me it did happen as a part of that developmental stage.
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I will say about people who aren't experiencing this, who haven't experienced this, they need to be healed of the developmental
18:06
[SPEAKER_00]: you are supposed to conquer if you will at each developmental stage.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't conquer those tasks because maybe you have a trauma, maybe you are neglected, maybe for whatever reason.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually people left with good enough parenting, conquer those tasks.
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just independence, things like that.
18:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you don't have a chance to achieve those tasks of development, the normal tasks of development, then it's possible that you could get really stuck.
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so first of all, I mean, I'm a very, very strong believer in cognitive behavioral therapy.
18:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't actually want to go to therapy, just the concept and the science behind it, that you can't change your first thought, but you can change your second thought.
18:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I get into that a little bit in a moment, but what I think about it developmentally, so I think about it as there are certain tasks of development that we are
18:55
[SPEAKER_00]: supposed to achieve.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one theory and I subscribe to that.
18:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very basic stuff that most people who have good enough parents, you know, you don't have to have like the best of everything in the world that the kind of your parents kind of get out of your way and you achieve independence.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You achieve responsibility separation.
19:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You have things like that.
19:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the people who are really stuck in their 50s,
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: and first of all, perhaps they have mental health challenges that they need to address and by the way, I mean, I struggle with anxiety at times with depression, thankfully not too much.
19:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So, no shade to that, obviously, I'm in the field, but, you know, it's possible that depression doesn't always look like staying in bed all day.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Depression could look like holding on to anger, irritability.
19:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I think it's important to just know that you may not just have to change your perspective, you may need to look into if you're struggling with something mental health wise.
19:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that's one thing.
19:42
[SPEAKER_00]: For some other people they may not for whatever reason have achieved those developmental tests because perhaps they had a trauma happen to them I never like to give examples of traumas because everyone experiences things differently and it's all a it's a complicated thing.
19:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I you know human nature is in
19:58
[SPEAKER_00]: are not a science.
19:59
[SPEAKER_00]: There is science behind it.
20:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not going to give examples, but things could have happened in your life that prevented you in your growing up from achieving those developmental tasks.
20:09
[SPEAKER_00]: They call it and in that case, you may be stuck to get out of being stuck, right?
20:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really hard to prescribe to each person, but what are some things that work?
20:17
[SPEAKER_00]: reflection works and for some people that are stuck for most people I would argue finding a good therapist to help you get unstuck is a really good way to go.
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one way.
20:26
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would say those people, listen, if it's working for you, then it's working for you.
20:31
[SPEAKER_00]: If people are happy or content, I imagine the people writing into you are not happy with that or they wouldn't be writing in.
20:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not here to say that everyone has to get to this point.
20:39
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have your 1 to 3 friends and you feel how you feel, but it's working for you, then it's working for you.
20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not one size fits all.
20:47
[SPEAKER_00]: if this what we kind of talked about sounds appealing to you and aspirational and you want to get there.
20:52
[SPEAKER_00]: For me, I was very privileged to have a supportive excellent upbringing and lots of healthy relationships.
20:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So this did happen to me pretty naturally.
21:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't try to have this mindset.
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Although I will say I did intentionally practice gratitude.
21:06
[SPEAKER_00]: My whole family did when my dad got sick.
21:08
[SPEAKER_00]: because we really needed to find ways to get out of that, obviously, the rut that you're in when you have a family member who's diagnosed with a terminal illness.
21:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, practicing gratitude, I think, probably spent this process up for me.
21:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Tiny things, by the way, really tiny things in gratitude.
21:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Braditude isn't always the big things.
21:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a cup of coffee.
21:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a breeze.
21:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Things like that.
21:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I think practicing gratitude, genuinely, even though it could sound hokey, is a way to start to get there.
21:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I think reflecting and if reflecting for you is with a friend or a partner or if it's with a practitioner, you know, I think those are always people can get there.
21:41
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I would say to your listeners who this isn't happening naturally for them that they want to be there.
21:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You're making me appreciate something about my mom.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I always appreciate a lot of things about my mom, who's been a guest on this show a lot.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I think one thing she modeled well for me growing up, and I didn't always do it well.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I think as I've gotten older, I have matched her energy in this, which is she did not raise me with a lot of discussion about beef with her own friends.
22:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really think she had much.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: There wasn't this culture in my house of like, I'm at it this one or this one said this the wrong way to me and now we're not talking and
22:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about the difference would it would be like to grow up in a house where your parents, I won't just blame them on.
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not fair.
22:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Wherever is raising you, is always fighting with somebody, is always mad at her friend and the friends mad at her and they're not talking and there's a lot of complaining about who's making the effort and who isn't.
22:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That just was completely absent.
22:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think as a person, I thought it this way.
22:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I spoken a lot on the show about my mom and my parents being a model for my friendships, but not in this specific way.
22:43
[SPEAKER_01]: She's just not an easily agitated person.
22:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, Kath, I'm much more agitated than she is and I've had to learn over the years.
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I think doing the show has helped me and before the show writing about friendship, reading about other people's friendship problems, I think has helped me in my own healing process of maybe anything I've ever felt of needing to be right, like you've used in an example before.
23:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such an exhausting way to walk around the world to always need to be right.
23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't feel the need to be in conflict with people a lot and I'm willing to work through conflict.
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: is, and I think we're just trying to help people get there.
23:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, my opinion, I think my show, and I got to have an opinion, this is a better way to go through life.
23:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really a more peaceful way, right?
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's a choice.
23:26
[SPEAKER_00]: If what you're doing is working for you, then it's working for you.
23:29
[SPEAKER_00]: For me, this is working much better for me.
23:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Once it sort of catches you, when you sort of see the success, like anything success, the get success.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, so when I might run into somebody and have a really positive thought about them, and then I start to feel more positively,
23:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it just builds on itself and I just find myself generally feeling more causatively and walking around just feeling more peaceful.
23:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not even positive because that's really it's not it's peaceful.
23:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just feeling at peace.
23:54
[SPEAKER_00]: What I would say about being right.
23:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I definitely it's probably a lot of the root of you and I back then being right comes at a cost.
24:02
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a cost for everything.
24:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything I say this to my kids all the time.
24:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is a trade off.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: There's only a finite amount of energy of time of everything.
24:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is a trade off.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: whether it's a choice or not, the anger or resentment or hostility, feeling that may not be a choice, but choosing not to feel it is a choice or at least choosing that you don't want to walk around with all that is a choice or it can be a choice.
24:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's like really the message.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: There is another way and I had to call you when it just hit me kind of like I'm 48.5, well again, greater than you and it really did hit me.
24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's something is changing.
24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: something happening to someone and I'll just have a different thought every so often I'll reach out.
24:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have reconnected gently with a few people, but we just lost touch.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't lead to a permanent reconnection.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It always feels better to walk around and feel reconnected with people and positivity towards people.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps me feel more positivity about myself as well.
24:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the real key is this shift from my 30s and 40s and I think a lot of women
25:08
[SPEAKER_00]: your friendships, say a lot about your identity, right?
25:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, whole my friends with and everyone always trying kind of trying to place, oh, she's part of that group or this group or these friends are those friends and all this friend group drama that we've always, you know, I've heard you talk about in your podcast, shifting from that to a much more, let me reflect on what I do have and what has occurred and then that neuroscience shift as we get older of
25:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm more inclined to remember the positive and a more inclined to make meaning all those things kind of to get painted together for me.
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So one question I think that might come up for people hearing all this is you talked about getting together for coffee with somebody that you had a connection with maybe not like a big rift, but they are not in your life as much anymore.
25:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It was fun to catch up.
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it can be tricky for people and keep some from even making dates.
25:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That is there's an anxiety.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I feel it.
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have time for one more person to fit in.
26:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I invite this person for one walk or one coffee, or we have one really even wonderful ketchup and the grocery store off to the side of Trader Joe's for an hour, because we just had so much talk about, how do we just leave it at that?
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And not bring them fully back into our lives again.
26:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That could be a problem with them, but just because we don't have time or room.
26:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I really wanna stress that from most people, this is probably not gonna lead to calling someone for coffee or something like that.
26:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I am generally, I think more than you, like I've a lot of am a huge extrovert and you're less of an extrovert.
26:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for me that was a natural thing.
26:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, let's get together.
26:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, but I think this is way more about an internal shift than an external manifestation of it.
26:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
26:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the main point.
26:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would say don't, don't see this shift as reaching out to someone for coffee.
26:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe you see this shift as going to someone's house.
26:57
[SPEAKER_00]: for a visitation for a funeral or a shiva call that you wouldn't have gone to before because of perceived, you know, we're not close anymore.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: This or that, do what you're comfortable with at a minimum and it's a really, really significant minimum.
27:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a minimum at all.
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the internal shift that I'm talking about and the way that your mind is processing.
27:16
[SPEAKER_00]: most friendships or lost touch friendships.
27:19
[SPEAKER_00]: We're even current friendships.
27:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about how you're processing it and re-framing it in your mind rather than what your behavior is doing, if that makes sense.
27:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, for me, it did look like a few more coffee dates.
27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I also have very little free time during the year, right?
27:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So my job doesn't lend itself to really getting together with people except on Saturday nights.
27:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, your job is more flexible and you're kind of around more.
27:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you do have to be more protective of your time.
27:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have time except in the summer really, but I think really what it looks more like than getting together with people for coffee is just how you feel about yourself, about them, about your friendship journey and that's a much more peaceful place to be it's not a story about
28:00
[SPEAKER_00]: you and you didn't lose touch because you are that person or because they're a bad person you lost touch and that's okay Or they did something but you can just forgive them in your heart, which just gives you more peace So even after you know, I'm not to tell them, right?
28:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they didn't even know that you were holding resentment and that you forgave them But it's really more about a personal internal ship that is really the key here and whatever that looks like for you You know, it looks like for you
28:23
[SPEAKER_01]: it's a perfect place to end and aren't I lucky everyone to have Rebecca as a person I get to personally ask for advice because I do find your advice not just now at that you're almost 50 but really in the past to be very reasonable and you do a job of asking me to think about the other point of view and like pointing out that they were trying to be kind like I could think of a particular time I wanted to bring up now.
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That you talked me off a ledge in a way and got me to see a different way and not so negatively or personally
28:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is not one-sided and it's not altruistic.
28:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I get the same from you and the comfort and familiarity we have is really, really priceless and I'm very excited to celebrate our and our other mutual college friends with the birthdays coming up your friendship really does mean the world to me and I am not surprised that you are dear Nina that you are the expert on friendships because to me you are the ultimate friend and I'm so blessed to have you.
29:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, love you Rebecca.
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, listeners, come back next week as we have tried to prove here when our friendships are going well.
29:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We are happier all around.
29:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
29:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
29:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Listeners, you can find my Facebook group, dear Nina, the group.
29:32
[SPEAKER_01]: When you go into the search part of Facebook, just type in dear Nina the group, and that is a great place where you can get your anonymous friendship questions answered, not just by me, but by other active members of the group.
29:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe they can even answer from the other point of view because it's so many people coming together who care about friendship.
29:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's it, dear Gina, the group.
29:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we're not connected on social media, that's at your name on friendship.
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Instagram, TikTok, even on YouTube.
29:58
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, have a great league.