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Hello friends yeah you I'm calling you a friend because chances are if you click this video you might feel some type of way about the friendships in your life maybe insecurity maybe some doubt maybe a lot more but I am here to hold your hand and we're going to break down all things friendship so let's get started now I'm going to be real here throughout the years I have been a spectacular friend I have also been a very shitty friend I've been a straight up mid vanilla friend but at the ripe age of 33 I think I have finally refined it so that I know how to be a better friend to those in my life let's look a little deeper let's look inward let's ask ourselves the questions what kind of
friend am I what do I have to offer essentially these questions are good little like thought experiments to understand your own self-worth and what you are bringing to the Friendship potluck because the reality is you attract what you are not what you want anyway I've done my homework already so I will share my list I've been told that I'm a great hype woman if you have a goal I want to help you achieve you want to sell some coins on Etsy let's do it we're in a marathon let's go I feel like I get like a actual contact high when I see my friends growing and evolving it just makes me so freaking happy I'm also a good listener some people can remember the lines of a movie front to back or can explain String Theory but my
superpower is that I have this uncanny memory when it comes to conversations if you tell me something or share something with me chances are I will remember it and follow up and this last one might sound a little weird but chances are I won't Envy anything you have I know it's a bold statement but I know I'm a secure person where someone's success doesn't Trigger or activate anything in me other than genuine happiness like you never have to dim your light to make me feel comfortable in my opinion the more ATT tuned and self-aware about your great qualities and not the great qualities the better of a friend you can be when I reflect on all the most tumultuous times with my friendships it's when I was not
in a good heads space it's when I had low self-esteem and a lot of self-doubt that's when I can be envious or competitive or second guessing whether my friend even likes me or just dragging friendships that have been needing to end and of course A lot of these Revelations happen through years of journaling and therapy this is also where I want to take a quick minute to thank betterhelp for sponsoring this video I've definitely become a better friend to others and myself through therapy and I think it's because my therapist gets the rough draft of anything that I'm going through especially when it comes to friendships because when you're talking about friendship conflict sometimes it could be a little like to talk about it with other friends because it's kind of like
is this gossip or am I just trying to work things through with a therapist I like knowing that what I'm going through is entering an airtight container therapy has been a great way for me to resolve the things that have been bubbling up in my friendship sector so if you guys are down to dabble and some therapy you can have better help connect you to a licensed therapist to help you and your mental health and getting started as a breeze you just go to my link betterhelp.com genen answer a few questions and then betterhelp will connect you to a professional usually within 48 hours from there you can have your session either on a phone computer call video chat or even messaging so if
you'd like to give therapy a go again my link is betterhelp.com genen or you can choose genim during sign up to enjoy a special discount for your first month all right so now that we've done our inner work let's explore the outer World we're going to do a really fun exercise guys this is called a friend map I want you to list every friend acquaintance even like friends that you'd like to get closer with on that list it's going to come in clutch when you have those nights where you're just crying being like I have no friends you'll know that it's a lie because you have this list look at it memorize it who is in your inner circle honestly if you have a rotation of three good friends in your
life you are good but let's say you only have one maybe it's time to look at that list of acquaintances and prepare to graft really think about what chapter they are in their lives I mean I think this isn't like a huge thing to consider for your close friends because they will make time for you no matter where you guys are in life but I find that this is helpful especially with new friendships because it helps when you guys are on the similar path so questions like are they married are they single do they have kids are they more work oriented are they going to school are they that random unemployed friend who is in IA on a Tuesday afternoon are they more of a homebody so next to the friends list I want you to make a list
of all the activities and interests that you would like to enjoy with a friend so my big one is I want to have some deep and real conversations these are the type of friends that you can hit up and be anywhere like a Costco parking lot just talking about the meaning of life and also wondering why matcha is $12 in La once you have this list try slotting your friends in each one of these sections some are just going to be very specific and some are going to take a lot of those boxes I do this because it's a lot to expect one friend to take every single one of your needs like your introverted but like deeply reflective homebody friend might be great for a night in but probably not the friend to
take out to a warehouse party you know and that's okay the ones that tick many of those boxes those are your unicorn friends keep them cherish them they are so freaking rare and consider yourself lucky so now that we got the organization part out of the way let's talk about building and maintaining a friendship my biggest tip on that is to reach out first and never keep a tally on who reached out first because you will honestly be setting yourself up for disappointment we all have seasons we're all going through stuff so do not be afraid to be the first to initiate something as long as they're saying yes that's all that matters keep that friendship momentum going ask them out for dinner go to a
karaoke bar go on a hike go on a picnic organize a beach day do not take it personally if people can't make it just keep going down that list and find someone that says yes eventually you got to shoot your shot baby like honestly life is way too short to just be twiddling your thumbs waiting for something to magically appear you have control of your own life so once you've locked in some quality time here are some things that I keep in mind to deepen a friendship I think the best types of friendships are ones where you can just Dive Right In you know I just can't keep things at surface level the whole time you know that's like just splashing around the kitty pool no I want to get deep I want to go in the
dark Waters with you and then like come back on the shore and splash around again and when a friend is sharing something with you let them spread out ask them deeper questions and if you can't think of a question just like a simple Earnest wow tell me more goes a long way especially if they're like really excited about the topic and a conversation doesn't always need to be 5050 right on the dot but it should feel balanc you know at best it feels like a really satisfying game of ping pong where you guys are snapping back and forth but you know there are also times when a friend needs the world of you and when you need the world from your friend that's true real friendship right there
regardless it's important to be vulnerable first in the words of the great bernee Brown a lot of times when we enter social situations we are wearing this clunky heavy armor in hopes that it's going to protect us we might feel guilty or shameful about opening up about something a little too personal in our lives but when you do that you're just hurting yourself you're bottling that [__] in that's not good for you but it's easier for someone to open up when you take off that armor FR you're like you know I'm done like this is me accept it or leave it and often times that inspires them to take off their armor too let's say you're that type of friend that doesn't want to share
something dark or too sensitive in hopes that it will like kill the vibe try this thought experiment Imagine This situation is reversed imagine that a good friend is really struggling with something and wants to open up to you about it how would you feel personally I would feel honored that they feel safe enough to share that information with me like never once have I been at a party being like God I was really enjoying myself at the bar until my friend wanted to talk about grieving the loss of a parent never true friends will always be there when you need them it's like a seesaw sometimes you're down then they spring you back up vice versa how do I know when to keep a friend I think the
biggest factor for me in this is after each hang I kind of check in with myself and see how I'm feeling do I feel lighter or do I feel drained overall I feel lighter even if what we spoke about was dark as I still feel just more fortified because I know we've got each other's backs but if you notice that after each hang you're feeling heavier or you're just kind of like second guessing like do they even like me I think it's important to not ignore this it might be a time to just put some space let the Friendship breathe or pull them over for a chat love Island style our intuition is a big thing and I think we should listen to it a lot more now in a friendship there will be friction
because as humans we are imperfect sometimes we act shitty unintentionally or sometimes the chemistry is just off but these are some things that have helped me navigate times of hardship in a friendship this is the hot take but do not try to change your friend when you are deciding that you want to be friends with someone you have to accept them exactly as they are right now if you are trying to change someone that is your weird way of attempting to control them you have to let people be who they are and if you spend any time trying to change someone you're just draining your own precious energy you're going to be so disappointed and we are done with our Bob the Builder era for example we all
have that friend that is consistently late to the function every time without a shadow of a doubt they're going to be late they're going to be texting you being like I'm on the way you're like no you're not [__] I know you're at home the thing is we still love them because once they arrive it's a good time instead of criticizing them or just being like passive aggressive on their tardiness what if we just accepted them as our tardy friend you know you can't change them you just can't you're not God but you can change your thoughts and you can adapt it makes sense to meet them at a place where time's not going to be a big factor you can invite them over to yours or offer to go to theirs be like hey I'm going to
bring some wine and cookies how does that sound and then another easy trick is if the dinner's at 7:00 tell them it's at 6:30 my personal trick when I'm hanging out with a tardy friend is that I just bring my Kindle or like another piece of reading material so that way when I'm waiting I'm actually like getting some reading in so it's a win-win I feel like these small adjustments can really help with the health of a good friendship now I want to cover confrontation as we've established we are all deeply imperfect we're going to mess up let's say there's a friend that's not treating you right it's killing your Vibe maybe on a night out she's just pick on you or making you feel small if it's really bothering you
I think it makes sense to have a chat about it you know it doesn't need to be a crazy big intervention style if you don't speak your mind and you let it roll over every single time that irk is going to mutate to resentment and resentment is a demon y'all it is really hard to shake off when resentment living in your heart it boils it ferments it mutates even further is dark so better to just clear the air and there is no play-by-play on handling difficult conversations but my rule of thumb is it's not what you say it's how you say it so really simple hey yesterday when you said X Y and Z about me it made me feel like this and if they're a true friend they're going to
be like oh my god I didn't even realize I did that I'm so sorry and then the behavior can be resolved most of the time our behavior is completely subconscious so honestly if a friend pulled me over saying that I made them feel a certain way about a certain thing that I did I would be all ears apologized and we could move forward but let's say that friend is acting hostile and defensive I think it's time to give that friendship a little break moving on to more of a serious example of Confrontation let's say you have a friend who is making life choices that you don't agree with before you confront them really reflect on what the situation is this coming from a place of judgment or actual genuine care this
is an extremely delicate area because you just do not want to come off preachy because immediately walls will go up you got to remember that everyone is just trying to figure out their own [__] people are going to do what they're going to do and they will change when they want to change not because of something you said as much as our ego would like to believe that like oh my God it's me no they changed because they wanted to it just shows that we're all on our own timelines and that means making mistakes a lot of them I think that's one of the hardest things about life it's watching the people you love devastating choices to learn the lessons that they need to you just got to trust
the process I'm a firm believer that friendships have seasons the only constant thing is change and we have zero control on who decides to stay in our lives and one of our big life lessons is to be at peace with that friendships can fizzle for a lot of reasons maybe someone moves they have kids they get into a relationship changes their career or maybe it's something deeper and we should normalize that friendship's wax and Wayne and most of the time it's not even worth having a convers ation about because it's like a mutual understanding like I call this a friendship winter and the signs are all there it's when they reach out to you and you're really struggling to find a date that works or if like the day
finally comes and you're just like filled with Dread that is probably a sign that you need to let the Friendship breathe I have been in both positions the reacher and the reachy the reality is we all have such a limited amount of free time we spend a lot of our time working and then if you have like a little side project thing like a passion project thing you want to spend some time in that if you're a parent you got to Mom it up then you're just trying to do some self-care stuff to recharge any free time that's remaining should be spent on the friends that are feeding you fueling you life is too short to spend it with people that you just don't want to I mean release the guilt release
the obligation this is your freaking life probably just in different life paths maybe you guys will merge again I do want to cover friendship breakups though because they are just awful but a part of life friendship can only work when both parties want to participate and if one of y'all want to bounce our job is to radically accept that if you're up for it you can ask your friend why they want to break away I think it's worth hearing out what they have to say in my opinion you don't need to take it all to heart but you will be getting feedback from someone who spent a lot of time with you it could be a path for growth but let's say they ghosted you with no response this is when you're
going to have to put your creative hat on and come to your own conclusions I realize that everyone one I know has a different version of me in their head and that's a narrative that I can't control we're all multifaceted people that have just everchanging moods depending on the environment or the place that we're in our lives if I am in a period of self-doubt and self-hatred I am not going to be vibrating high at the function but if I have crossed off everything on my to-do list I'm feeling electric I am just going to be bouncing off the walls and your true friends are the ones that accept all versions of you exactly as you are and instead of lasering in on that one friend that
doesn't want to be a part of your life you have to remember it's their lost baby look at all the friends that choose to stay in your life friendship is always going to be a two-way street remember who you are and what you bring to the table and if you're having one of those days where you're feeling really sorry for yourself let out that list and read all those great qualities and attributes that you bring to the table you have to be your own hype man you know no one else is going to do it better than you so that is a wrap on this video before I head out if you are interested in starting therapy let Better Health Connect you to a therapist in the comfort of your own home visit
betterhelp.com genen or click genim during the sign up for a special discount of your first month all right thank you so much for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one bye
