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Note 75: Your Healing Is Making Your Friendships Awkward · Notes to Her

• 0:13
  Yaya: Hey, girl. Hey. Welcome back to Notes to Her, the daily pep talk. I am Yaya, your confidence and mindset coach, and I'm here to keep you growing without feeling like you have to leave anybody behind to do it. Let me tell you about something.
• 0:26
  The other day, I caught myself biting my tongue. Friend of mine was telling me about a situation that she's in and I had a very clear opinion about it. However, I kept every word of it to myself. Now the old version of me would have reacted the exact way that she was reacting and I couldn't find a way to say what I was feeling now without sounding like I believed I was better than her, because that's not how I felt. Have you ever been there?
• 0:52
  You change, your reactions change, your tolerance changes, and suddenly you're sitting across on somebody that you have known for years, and it's when you feel like you are speaking different languages. That gap between where your confidence is and where the people around you are can get awkward fast. So let's talk about it. Now growth doesn't always come with an announcement. It's not like you're gonna send the group chat a message that says, update everybody.
• 1:28
  I handle conflict differently now. Well, actually, wait a minute. You might do that if you were super explosive before and you're learning how to control your emotions. I take that back. But for most of us, growth shows up in small moments and you may not even notice them at first.
• 1:43
  Like you hear a story about somebody for the fifth time and this time you stay quiet and you don't add your 2¢. Or a friend vents about the same person for a third week in a row and you find yourself asking what she plans to do about it instead of agreeing that he's the worst. How about someone texts you at eleven at night with drama and you decide it can wait till the morning. You say I'm gonna sit this one out and you mean it. From where you're standing that looks like a woman taking care of herself but from where your friend is standing something has shifted and she can't quite name what it is.
• 2:20
  She might be thinking, since when does she not want to talk about this? Or why is she being so distant lately? Or the big one? Okay, now she thinks she's better than us. The reality is you don't think like that and you know you don't, and I know sometimes it can still come off like you do because sometimes even I battle with that trying to find the right words to say.
• 2:42
  So if you've ever sat across from a friend that you love and felt like you have moved on from a situation that she was still wowing in, I want you to know that this is a normal part of growing and it rarely comes with a warning, which is why it catches many of us off guard. Now let me give you my own example because it's the clearest one that I have. So I have an ex and I cut off contact with him a long time ago. Now he still might call me every six months or so and depending on how I feel, I might pick up or I might sit and watch the call go to voicemail. And that's pretty much the extent of our relationship.
• 3:15
  He doesn't get access to my life anymore because he didn't appreciate it when he had it. So when I talk about him, I will tell you plainly that he is the one relationship that I regret because I wasted some good years on him. And I honestly wish I had never dated him for the baggage that he left me with. But I don't replay what he did, I don't go back through every hurtful thing and I'm suddenly not calling him names and cussing him out years after. He hurt me deeply, but he was also somebody who taught me what my absolute needs were in a relationship.
• 3:46
  So I've learned some lessons, and the best thing that I could do for myself was move on. I can't change what happens, so carrying the anger around would only add unnecessary weight to my life, and I'm not about that. Now, take the friend of mine. I'm keeping details loose on purpose because I love her and this is not about putting her on display. But she dated a guy over a decade ago and has been in a new relationship for about nine years now.
• 4:14
  But when she talks about her ex, you can still hear that heat. She remembers everything he did, and she tells it in great detail, and holds onto it like it happened last month. And at the same time the two of them still keep in touch sporadically and when things get rocky in her current relationship he becomes a place that she goes to for attention. He's like her security blanket and the things she reaches for when she feels cold. So here we are, two women with two exes and we have completely different relationships in the past.
• 4:46
  But when we sit down and we talk about our exes, we're not having the same conversation. She hears me say that I'm over it and that I don't need to talk about him. And I think to Her can tell like I'm judging her on how she handles hers. However, I'm not ranking us. She is a good woman and I am nowhere near a finished product.
• 5:04
  I have my own things that I'm still sorting out, believe me. So she's doing what she learned to do with her, which is keep it close. Anger can feel like a protection and keeping a man who hurt you in your phone can feel like safety because at least he's familiar. I And understand that, but I also know that me being at peace with my ex might make her feel like I'm judging her for not being there yet, and I'm not. Now a friend's reaction to your growth can come from different places, and it helps when you know them before you decide what her reaction means.
• 5:37
  Sometimes she feels like a mirror, and when you stop joining the drama, you hold one up without meaning to. She watches how you handle something and feels the distance between that and how she's handling her own situation, and nobody enjoys that feeling. It can come out as defensiveness, a joke at your expense, or a comment about how much you've changed. And none of this feels good. Trust me, I know.
• 6:01
  Sometimes it's jealousy and I'm not even gonna lie to you about that because some women get uncomfortable when a friend starts expecting more from her life because it raises questions about what they expect from their own. Most of the time though, I think the answer is simpler. She doesn't understand why you respond and what that you do, because you went through something that changed you. She didn't go through it with you, so from her seat, your calm looks like coldness and your boundaries look like distance. Now I want you to picture something with me.
• 6:34
  Imagine two friends who have driven the same road to work for years. It's slow, it's packed, and you both complain about it every morning. The complaining is half of what makes your friend so close. Then one day you find a back row, it took some effort to find, but you took a few room and turns along the way and finally made your way there. Now you get to work early, you're calm and you've got your coffee in hand.
• 7:01
  Your friend is still sitting in that traffic and when she finally walks in and sees you relax at her desk, she asks what's going on with you lately and you tell her about the back row. She hears you've been doing it wrong the whole time. You never said that and you never meant it, but that's the message that landed. That's what it can feel like when you talk about your healing in front of someone who hasn't gotten there yet. Your calm is a back road that she didn't ask to see.
• 7:31
  Now most of us have been on both sides of this, myself included. We have all been that friend that has been sitting in traffic at some point, a little prickly about the woman who got ahead. We've all been that one, still on the road navigating through traffic. So before you've decided that your friend is threatened, give her the same grace you would have wanted in her seat. Now most women handle this gap in one of two ways and both of them cost something.
• 8:01
  The first way is to shrink. You laugh at the joke about the ex even though it doesn't feel funny to you anymore. You nod along when she says she's fine down with him and knowing that she isn't because correcting her feels like too much work. You start showing up to your own friendship as the version of you that she's comfortable with. That version is familiar, but it also leaves you more tired every time you leave a hangout.
• 8:24
  The second one is quieter. She stops calling as much, she stops sharing the news, and you drift without ever having the conversation. She feels you leaving and has no idea why so she fills in the blanks herself. The story that you think that you're better than her ends up written without any input from you. Then there's grief which doesn't get talked about enough.
• 8:48
  Some of these friends hold your history, they knew you and the apartment that you hated and the job that drained you. They watch you go through things that nobody else saw. And when you outgrow the way that you used to relate to each other, it can feel like losing a piece of your own past even when the friendship stays. Now if you listen to No seventy one, we talked about how raising your standards can feel lonely before it ever feels free. Friendship carries a version of that same loneliness.
• 9:15
  You may feel it in a room with people that you love, which makes it harder to explain to anyone. If you're not alone right now because your confidence has moved faster than your circle, the confidence kit is a great place to begin. It's a web based kit I built for women who are building their confidence and the link will be in the show notes if you want to access it. Now for the part that you can use, I want you to know that you do not owe anybody an apology for getting healthier and you also get to be kind about it and both can happen in the same conversation. You can start by answering questions plainly.
• 9:47
  When she asks you why you didn't want to rehash the whole thing, you can say, I used to go over that situation constantly and it wasn't doing anything for me, so I stopped. You don't need a speech, a defense, or a lecture about how she should heal too. You're sharing what works for you and she could take it or leave it. Next, ask before you offer an opinion. This one matters the most if you have a friend who keeps giving someone a chance after chance and you're watching it from the sidelines, afraid that the wrong sentence will push her away.
• 10:19
  Try, do you want my honest opinion or do you want me to just listen to you right now? That question hands her the steering wheel. If she says she wants your opinion, you can invite it in and she's much more likely to hear you, but tread lightly because just because she gives you an opening, that doesn't mean you have to go into attack mode on her situation. When you do share your opinion, say it once with love and tie it back to what you've seen. Like I've watched you give him a lot of chances and I worry about you.
• 10:47
  Or ask a question that has her doing her own thinking. If your best friend told you this exact story, what would you tell her? Then let it sit. You get one honest, loving conversation because saying it again every time you talk turns you from a friend into a supervisor or an enemy. She's an adult and she gets to make her own decisions at her own pace.
• 11:10
  What you can offer is a place that stays safe for her, whether she takes you up on your advice or not. And down the road when she finally needs somebody who won't say I told you so, she will know exactly who to call. Third, adjust your closeness without withdrawing your love. Some friends become the woman that you laugh with and you have dinner with and they stop being the woman you can bring your deepest self to. Yes, it's a smaller role but it's still a real one.
• 11:37
  You can love someone and decide how much of your inner world she gets to hold. And fourth, keep your standards in the room. When the conversation turns into a bashing session about an ex, you can stay quiet, change the subject or say I'm gonna pass on this one, you don't have to participate to stay close. And give it a season because a friend who is adjusting will start to adjust. She'll ask you some questions, she'll make some room and she'll get curious about what changed.
• 12:05
  A friend who keeps punishing you for growing with the digs, the jokes at your expense, or the silent treatment every time you set a limit is showing you something too, and you get to decide how much access she has to your life from there. Last, check yourself. Healing doesn't make you the expert on somebody else's life. If you notice yourself feeling above her, take a moment and remember you were her before you found the back Road. Somebody gave you the room, or the time, or hard enough landing that you finally moved, and she deserves the same patience that you were given.
• 12:42
  So I want you to think about one friendship right now. Is there a friend whose reactions you've been managing lately? Somebody you edit yourself around before you speak? Where have you gone quiet to keep the peace and what did that quiet cost you? Is there a place where you've been judging someone for standing exactly where you used to stand?
• 13:01
  And that the roles were reversed, how will you want her to talk to you? Take your time with those, you don't need to answer them today, but you do need to start asking the question. Now some of you needed this note because you've been carrying around a friendship that feels heavier than it used to and you thought that something was wrong with you. Growing at a pace that's different from the people that you love puts you in different seasons, and nobody said anything wrong by changing. Your job is to keep being honest and kind while figuring out how close each person gets to stay.
• 13:32
  Some friendships will stretch and make room for who you are now, some will get smaller and you will grieve them. A few will end. You can love every one of those women and still refuse to go back to the version of you that made someone else comfortable. And if you're ready to build your confidence from the inside out, the confidence Erica is waiting for you, grab the link in the show notes. And I'll see you in the next note where we are going to be talking about the lies that you keep telling yourself.
• 13:57
  So remember, your healing might make some friendships awkward, and the ones worth keeping will make room for who you are now.