36. Creating Meaningful Friendships: Evolving Together While Fostering Authenticity, Enrichment and Growth in Our Social Circles

Embark on a journey of self-discovery and interpersonal wisdom as we unpack the profound influence friendships hold over our personal evolution. Imagine a life where every relationship propels you closer to your dreams, where the company you keep not only mirrors your values but also fuels your drive to achieve greatness. This episode, we delve into the crucial interplay between our social connections and our journey towards our most authentic selves, sharing vital insights on fostering friendships that are both supportive and challenging, ensuring they serve as catalysts for growth rather than constraints.

Navigating life's complex tapestry requires an understanding of the delicate balance between giving support and space to our friends, especially in times of hardship. We explore the art of effective communication and empathy in relationships, addressing the pitfalls of jealousy and the beauty of genuine celebration in our friends' triumphs. By embracing the notion that each individual we meet is in a state of constant evolution, just like ourselves, we learn to appreciate the fluidity of human connections and the need to adapt to the changing chapters of each other's stories.

Concluding this heartfelt conversation, we're reminded of the richness that a diverse tapestry of relationships brings to our lives. No single person can fulfill all our emotional needs, and it's within this diversity that we find strength. The episode leaves us with an empowering message: recognize your worth, strive for continuous personal growth, and intentionally curate a life surrounded by those who champion your highest potential. Join us in this quest for a more meaningful and fulfilling existence, enriched by the company we choose.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to. It's the Human Experience Podcast Hosted by Hazel Brown, a healthcare leader, wife, mom and career coach. If you're big on authenticity, personal development, perseverance and transparency, you're in the right place. Get ready to be uplifted, inspired and empowered as you become fearless in pursuit of the life you desire and deserve. Our goal is to help you level up by creating a safe space to learn and reflect, while listening to transparent stories from our host or successful professionals and business owners who've agreed to share the parts of success that typically gets x'd out on social media, because that's the part you need to see and hear the process. Go ahead and subscribe. You don't want to miss out on these transparent stories and discussions that reveal highs, lows, aha moments and nuggets that'll help you to grow and glow.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Hey, hey, hey. Thanks so much for tuning in to the it's the Human Experience Podcast. I'm your host, hazel Brown. Today I wanted to talk to you guys about friendships as we enter into the next chapter of our lives. I think it's always important for us to analyze our circles and the things that we surround ourselves with every single day, because we're surrounded with people at work. We're surrounded with people in our partnerships, in our friendships, in our acquaintances, and I want to make sure that, as we think about our professional relationships, our romantic relationships and our friendships, it's something that we really discover about how far we want to continue to go with these friendships, with these partnerships. Who really helps us shine, who really allows us to not dim our lights, who really allows us to feel heard, to feel seen, to feel valued as we think about the life that we're creating for ourselves? Many times, you can be going on your own professional development journey, own personal development journey, own personal growth journey and self improvement journey, but the people around you are not on the same journey, and so, because they're not on the same journey, you still feel some sense of being alone. You still feel less than your highest self because you're walking around every single day with people that don't get you, and so I am not advocating for you to cut those people off. I'm advocating that, as you build new relationships and you go through your friendships, I want you to truly analyze who you are as a person, what sits right with you as a person and what will help you to grow into your highest self as you move into your next chapter and next dimension of your highest self. Yes, I did just jump into the episode just that fast. If you're new on the podcast, you might be thinking to yourself wait, hold up. She just jumped into the whole episode. Yes, I did, but I did decide to do a little rewind for you to go ahead and hit that follow button if you're new to the podcast, if you're returning, hey, hey, thanks for tuning into the it's Human Experience podcast. As you can see, in today's episode, I am going to be talking all about friendships, the benefits of making sure that your friendships are fully aligned to the person that you are, so that you can make sure that you're showing up for yourself but you're also showing up for others in a way that provides value to both you and to them, and so I hope that you're ready to dive in to growing and going into your highest self, because that is exactly what we are going to do. Be sure to share the podcast with your besties, your friends or anyone that you know that is working on personally developing and becoming the best version of their selves.

Speaker 2: 4:21

The reason I wanted to talk this episode really about friendships and talking about all the things around friendships is, as we've kind of going into new errors and traces of our lives, our next chapters and evolution, if you will. Oftentimes, the circle that you have around you is one of the first things that you need to reflect upon, because in those moments that you're sharing with other people whether it be a significant other, longtime bestie, associates at work, colleagues and people that you've met along the way they typically help to form your thought process. So, knowing that the people that are closest to you are helping you to act out in the way that you do in your daily life, it is very important to analyze what those people in that circle are contributing to being that they're adding value or they're removing the value from your life, and so I saw a quote on social media and I wanted to really share it with you. Hold on to the friends who bring you a sense of safety, the friends that embody authentic energy, the friends who encourage vulnerability, the friends who glow with empathy, the friends who elevate your frequency, the friends who center you in stability and the friends who choose you unconditionally.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Many times you may feel triggered or uncomfortable in situations, whether it be at work, with your significant other, with your friends, with your family, with associates, strangers, whatever the case may be, and it's very important for you to really think about what your values are, what your morals are, what lights you up and what dims your light, because then, from that point, you can start to think about the kind of people you need in your life, based on what lights you up, and you're not going to always hear all of the mushy, gushy stuff from the people that light you up, because constructive criticism is important. We talked about that in previous episodes. If you're new to the podcast, go back, because we have some amazing episodes that really get into the heart of things that are important as we reflect, grow and personally develop, and so know that people tend to have issues with being honest and friendships, because they don't want to hurt people, they don't want people to feel offended, but you are your best when you have someone who genuinely cares about you as a person and wants to see you win. Your concern should be them not being honest about how they're feeling or how they view certain things that you do in situations. Because if they're not honest and you can't grow and we want to grow right, we want to level up, we really think about in your past friendships, in your current relationships and friendships, what is working for you and what isn't. And because everything that we do always shows empathy in the sense that we're emotionally thinking through what people are going through.

Speaker 2: 7:52

I want you to think about that too, because I don't want you over there saying, hey, sweetie is not showing up for me, she doesn't reach out to me anymore, she doesn't call me, she's never there. Every time I'm having a hard moment, she's nowhere to be found. I want you to think to yourself in that moment what is sweetie going through? Have I done a good job in being a friend and pouring to make sure they're at a good place in their life? Because we talked about in the previous episode when we create boundaries for ourselves. That is a two-way street in our relationships and everything that we do.

Speaker 2: 8:33

So. If you just want your friends to be there for you to make you feel heard, seen and valued, but you're not doing it for your friends maybe sweetie's not showing up because sweetie's drowning, maybe you're sweetie, maybe you're drowning and you're not showing up for your friends, and in that case it's very important that you take a moment to reach out to them, not because you're time for you to pour into them. No, your battery is at zero, it's empty. You need a new one, you need to rest. But separate from that, you just need to say hey, I'm just in a space right now to where, yes, I know I could reach out to you because I trust you and I'm just not there. Right, if I felt like talking, I would reach out to you, but currently I am going through some things and I don't really want to talk about it until I've overcome it. It's not because I don't trust you, it's not because I don't feel safe with you, it's just I want to work through this and make sure that these are my thoughts. So I share that.

Speaker 2: 9:36

To say that in a friendship, it's very important that you communicate and let the person know that I'm just not in a space to show up wholeheartedly in my friendship. Allow me the time I need to get back to my normal self. So it's a two-way street. So you see that on one end, a friend who is hurting and not in a space of showing up to be a quote unquote friend can communicate that they're not in the space. And on the other side, where you're feeling that drawback, you're feeling that emptiness, you can say to yourself wait, I know that I built this friendship on solid ground. We're honest, our values are in sync. They're genuinely a good person. So it's very possible that they're going through something and in that case maybe I should reach out to find out how I can help to fill that void and not be so quick to cut them off.

Speaker 2: 10:37

What I've learned over the years is that many times you need to learn your friends in the same way that you need to learn who your partner is or what kind of partner you want. You have to make sure that you invest time in truly understanding people. I think too many times people tend to think that they know someone. The reality is you don't know yourself. How can you fix your mind, your mouth and think to yourself that because you know a family member, because you know a longtime friend, because you know someone who works with you, that you know them. You don't know them. You know of them. There are many things that happens in their day-to-day life that you know nothing about. There are many thoughts that they are battling and keeping to themselves. There are many dreams that they have that they're holding onto for fear of being judged or not being accepted or not wanting a small mind to dim their light. Whatever the case may be, there are so many things that happen within the people that you are shoulder to shoulder with on a daily basis that you will never understand about their overall life.

Speaker 2: 11:59

The reason I wanted to share that is I see it happen time and time again where people assume that they know you. If the person is focused on personal development or the person is focusing on becoming their best self, who you knew yesterday is not necessarily who you know today, because maybe yesterday they were an alcoholic. Yesterday they could have been strung out on cracker drugs or something. Yesterday they didn't go to the gym. Yesterday they didn't read. But today guess what? Today's their first day sober. Today they read all morning. They picked up their Bible, they started exercising For the last 30 days they haven't smoked. For the last 30 days they've been going to the gym, but just not sharing it with anyone. But you're assuming that you know that person based on what it is. You've seen what it is, you've heard and all of the past things that have been demonstrated.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Allow people to show up as their selves. That within itself, can help you build lasting relationships, because people feel heard, they feel safe around you. They don't feel like everything is only about what they can do for you. You truly hold a container to show up for them and allow them to grow. You're happy when you see them do things and try to accomplish things, which is another thing I wanna sit in when we think about building strong relationships.

Speaker 2: 13:32

If, at any point, you have a friend, a loved one, a partner and they're doing something meaningful and you think to yourself that it makes you feel inferior, it makes you feel jealous, it makes you feel like ugh, they're bragging, I want you to look at yourself for a moment and realize that you're missing something. There's something in you that wants more out of your life that you're not giving it, and the reason I know that to be true is because, if you were doing everything that you knew you were supposed to be doing and you were fully aligned with the person that you are destined to be. There's no shortcomings internally, subconsciously. So you're like, oh my God, you've always wanted to do that, girl, I'm proud of you. You're looking at you, you're doing the thing. I am so happy for you. You're happy to see people get to the point in their life to where they can be proud that they follow through on something. They can be proud that they have become what it is that they've been working so hard at. If, in your spirit, you can't be happy for that, then that tells me that there's something that you're not working on for yourself, to where now you feel some kind of way because you're not where you're supposed to be.

Speaker 2: 15:00

And it's important that I sat in that, because a lot of times people will feel these different feelings of jealousy, resentment and all the things, which is not healthy for any friendship, it's not healthy for any partnership, it's not healthy for any relationship, and so it's very important that you ask yourself why am I feeling this way and how can I make sure I address this so this doesn't continue to be a theme in future friendships and relationships, because it will be if you don't address it For our shift gears. I really wanted to get into the fact that many times, as we're showing up for our friendships and our partnerships and our relationships and all the shifts right, we're showing up for all of it and within our showing up, we tend to focus on our perceptions of what we think life is supposed to be or how is it that we're coping with life. So an example I can give you is maybe your friends saying that they're having a really hard week, whether it's with a relationship, whether it's with a job, when it's with a circumstance, and your response is girl, you're okay, you're gonna get through it, you'll be fine. It is very important for you to not dismiss someone else's journey, their perception of hard, simply because you're going through something. It is very unhealthy in any relationship, in any other ships. Right that you show up and you let someone feel heard. That is truly emotional responsiveness. We've talked a lot about emotional intelligence, emotional resilience, but emotional responsiveness is like really sitting there and being willing to listen and hear someone out and provide an empathetic response by putting yourself in that person's shoes. It doesn't matter if you're going through something harder, your perception of harder than what they're going through. That is not relevant to the situation. Everyone's heart is different and there are things that you have gone through in your journey many moons ago that your future self or current self will say girl, you remember when that was hard for you. Now, that is nothing because you've gone through more things, but it doesn't take away from the fact that in that moment that was a mountain like Mount Zion, mount Everest. It was a mountain and now you look at it like child. That is like going to the park.

Speaker 2: 17:43

The reason is so important to figure out, like who you are and what you want in your friendships, in your relationships, in your partnerships, is because you really need to understand like do they match your level of attachment? Because some people are real clingy, like I want you to be here in every step of the way. I want you to call me every day. I want you to be here. No, these are not the things I want. I'm just talking. I want to clear it up real quick.

Speaker 2: 18:16

But you want to know, like does that person show up as a low key friend? Does that person need you to commit to talking once a week? Do you care more than they do or do they care more than you do? You definitely don't want that pursuing and distancing kind of game play, if you will, in your friendship or your partnership. So where they're thinking to themselves oh, I text them yesterday in the last two times. I'm going to wait on them to text me this time, like if your friendship is authentic, if your relationship is authentic, if that partnership is authentic, we should not be waiting for anything. We should be reaching out again and saying, hey, you okay. I noticed that I texted you yesterday. You didn't respond. Not rushing you to respond, just want to make sure you're okay because you genuinely care about that person.

Speaker 2: 19:06

When you genuinely care about someone and you're building a solid relationship like I'm not looking at who texts last and who called last, like that is petty, that is something for elementary school and I hope that people at that age are not even doing it. Because if you're going to spend your time in competition and watching and being so careful, that means you're guarded, that means you're so worried about being hurt. And the reality is, if I'm in a quality relationship, a quality friendship, I don't care how long it lasts, if that friendship in that relationship is meant to only be a season. I want to know that I gave it everything in that season and I want to know that they gave it everything in that season. When it's going to end, it's going to end. If it's forever, it's going to be forever. What really matters is the foundation, and I want us to spend more time on building a solid foundation versus spending time being petty. It's time to stop that tally Like just show up, be there, but make sure the foundation is pure.

Speaker 2: 20:14

I've said so much in this episode, but what I wanted to do is truly take some time to make sure you remember that the reason you chose these people, these partnerships, these friendships, these relationships, these collaborations or that job, is in that moment. It served you, they served you, it was working for you. So, as you've grown, it's important to understand what role they played in your previous chapter. Do they have a role in your next chapter or future chapters? And you're honest with yourself and understanding that as you grow into your next level, that person may still be a key player in your next level, but they just very much be more of a silent character in that chapter.

Speaker 2: 21:15

How many times have we read books that in chapter one, like Emily was like the main person, and by chapter five you don't even hear about Emily again. And then in chapter 12, emily is like she don't have roles. Listen, emily is everything and we have to remember that. You will not have friends, relationships, partnerships, where they're always the main character, where they are always on the stage. It is sometimes necessary to give other people a place on the stage. It's also important to give other people time to heal as they're going through life and for them to be able to rest and rejuvenate and pick up the things that they need in their day to day life to be their stronger self.

Speaker 2: 22:10

So I think that in relationships, the most important thing to remember is empathy, as well as just emotional responsiveness and emotional intelligence in the way we show up for ourselves and in the way that we show up for others. Otherwise, we're going to constantly feel that we need to replace people, that we need to just X them out, and that is unhealthy and it's unnecessary because, just like they're not perfect, you're not perfect and I want you to really remember that and truly analyze the role that people have in your life and whether they belong in your life or they don't, and really give yourself a chance to write down the reasons why I'm not saying don't X people out, because some people need to be X out. If they are toxic, if they are not right for you and your overall mental well-being, they got to go. But just don't cut people off simply because they didn't meet one expectation, simply because you've created these unrealistic expectations and boundaries for your friendships that they don't have space to hold for themselves, and so I wanted to make sure we talked a little bit about that, because many times as we're going through our growth phases, our networks are growing or shrinking, and so with that, it's very important that we think about what we want versus what we don't, because we have the ability to make the decisions in our life, to create the kind of circles that serve us in a way that we feel more whole and we feel like we are in a place where we're understood.

Speaker 2: 24:00

The conversations are different. I'll sit in that for a second. The conversations are different. I'm going to share a little insights about how the conversations are different. Simply being, if someone has a business and I have a business they understand the struggles that I am going through within my business, whether they've been there already, they're currently there or they're starting to see those struggles where, if I have a friendship and they don't have a business, I may be like, girl, oh my God, I made like $15,000 in just one week. Like, oh my God, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Speaker 2: 24:42

That friend may be thinking, oh, you're real braggy over there. Look at you, look in their head. They're thinking it Real braggy, talk about that. They're with the friend that has a business. Girl, did you make sure that you're taking out enough for taxes? Because, child, you know them, people, uncle, they not playing you going to end up losing all that money to taxes. Conversation is different, mindset is different. The understanding of what you're actually experienced is completely different, where the friend who doesn't understand that could go back to their friends.

Speaker 2: 25:17

I hate talking to Vivica because every time I talk to Vivica, all she talks about is how much money she makes this week and she makes it seem like it's such a bad thing. Like I can't stand people who brag like that. Like, at least if they're going to brag, they should brag all the way. You know, your stations are just different. Also, I think it's very important that you sit in the fact that even on my grief journey let's be real, on my grief journey, just having people who understand that level of hurt from losing a parent, it's different than the conversation with talking to people who does not understand that, because I'm talking about how hurt I am from the experience of losing my mom, and a friend who has not lost their mom is like, oh, I know that must be hard but, you know, still try your best to make them proud. Like, girl, I'm doing that, I'm still doing that, but I still hurt from losing my mom.

Speaker 2: 26:20

So someone who has lost their mom or their loved one because there's different levels of love, right, so it doesn't have to be a parent that they've lost, but they've lost somebody close to them who really made a hard impact that person has to reassess life and determine what is life all about. They have to really think about how they show up in the world and how they use their time, because they realize time is not promised. So those are thoughts that have gone through their minds, simply from realizing how easily it is for somebody to just drop off the face of the earth, and so the conversations are different, and so that is why it's very important to truly analyze where you are in life, what's important to you, what kind of traits and qualities of people that you bring around you need to have. For me, I have made those reassessments prior to losing my mom, but even after, because I realize like I want people who are working on learning who they are as people and who are challenging their self to become their best self in whatever that is Like.

Speaker 2: 27:24

I am not comfortable in situations where the friendships, partnerships and conversations that I'm having is very status quo. I am not a status quo kind of person and what I have learned is as I talk to more and more people or surround myself with people who are just comfortable not betting on their selves or comfortable being uncomfortable, it makes me feel like sometimes I'm doing too much and I know I'm nowhere near where I'm going to be in the future. So if I haven't cracked the code in the icing of where it is, that I'm going to be surrounding myself with people who are more scared of becoming their best versions of their selves doesn't help me to stretch myself, because the reality of the matter is I am nowhere near where I can be and where is my full potential, just like you're nowhere near your full potential. As I've grown and started working on becoming the kind of person to where people feel safe around, they're able to embody their authentic energy and become their highest self, I always want to make sure I continue to give back and provide those insights, because those are the things that helped me to feel more whole. Those are the things that helped me to find my people. Those are the things that made me feel like, oh my God, life is life in a good way, because I am surrounded with people who get me, who are rooting for me, who want to see me win, and I just want to make sure you understand that things are going to happen.

Speaker 2: 29:02

Your friendships are going to have little areas to where they're not filling all your voids, but don't expect one friendship to fill every hole that you have. And there are many people out there, and there are some people that maybe they're the people you go out on your trips with. They're the people that you go to networking events with. They're the people that you go and learn how to do business with. They're the people that you just have an authentic conversation with. Every friend doesn't need to know how to do everything. There are people for every and everything, any and everything, I should say. So just continue to show up as your best self, because there's no negotiating your value. You're worth it, you've been worth it, you'll always be worth it. Now go build a life that you want for yourself.

Speaker 1: 29:54

We hope you caught all those gems. So here for all of it. Be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss a gem. Write a review so that we know to keep bringing you episodes like this. And check us out online at it's TheHumanExperiencecom to keep up with us. Keep growing and glowing. Catch you on the next episode.