On this week’s episode of Let’s Talk About…, Elise sits down with co-host Sarah Joseph to talk about friendships.
Sarah is a certified emotional intelligence coach whose mission is to help you get comfortable with your emotions and master them to live a more purposeful life. She understands how our lack of emotional management can impact the longevity of our relationships and can inspire our emotional healing by plugging into our most powerful tool, the Mind. Her philosophy is that our emotions show up in every aspect of our lives and it’s your right to learn how to manage them effectively to your advantage.
On this week’s episode, Elise and Sarah talk about the evolution within friendships, taking space from one another, ingredients for a healthy friendship, and some green & red flags.
“…Your friends become your soulmates too. Your friends also, become part of your life and people that you don’t necessarily marry, but you marry in your heart. These are people that you begin to love and you show so much love and kindness and they really know who you are.” Sarah tells Elise on Let’s Talk About.
Check out the show’s full transcript below.
[00:00:00] Elise: Hi everyone and welcome. This week we’re talking about one of my favorite subjects friendships. So we’re continuing our series on emotional intelligence with emotional intelligence coach Sarah Joseph.
Hi Sarah.
[00:00:11] Sarah: Hello. I’m excited for our topic today.
[00:00:13] Elise: I know, me too. I feel like this is, I mean, friendships, you know, when you think of, um, dating and relationships, which is something we just talked about in the, the previous episode, dating is something that kind of happens, you know, maybe more into your late teens, twenties and beyond, in relationships anyway of, of a romantic nature, but friendships, it’s funny cuz one of the first questions we have here is what’s the longest standing friendship you currently have in your life? And friendships start from like births.
[00:00:46] Sarah: Oh my God.
[00:00:46] Elise: So, like, some of them are, you know, forever. And so I think that it’s one of. my favorite topics too, because I think that friendships change.
I think that we’re all starting, there’s more, um, conversation around like, okay, what are boundaries in friendships? When do you end a friendship, like more around math than there was in the past? I think cuz we’re all so, um, connected now on social media, like people that you wouldn’t have kept in touch with if you like moved provinces.
Mm-hmm. , you would’ve kind of just like maybe had a phone call. Yeah. Once in a while and then, then that would’ve faded. But now we have all these people surrounding us all the time still. We follow their lives and I think there’s probably a little more, I don’t wanna say pressure, but there’s a little more opportu or opportunity to maintain friendships too.
Sometimes I feel a little like, I dunno if pressure’s the right word, but like, I loved these people. I want them in my life still. How do you maintain this when you don’t necessarily live nearby? Um, so anyway, I’m excited to dive into this today. So, , one of the first questions that we kind of wanted to talk about is what’s that long, longest standing friendship you have in your life currently?
And that’s what made me think of all that verbiage. I just spewed. And that it really, I mean, yes, my sister, mom, dad sure. Like familial relationships, but outside of that, like the longest ones were my neighbors. Wow. And like they were born and we were friends in instant. Like we, you know, we just like how long,
[00:02:13] Sarah: how many years was that?
[00:02:14] Elise: Sorry?
[00:02:15] Sarah: How many years is that?
[00:02:16] Elise: Like 30 plus years. Like thir my, I guess my longest would be like 36. Wow.
[00:02:23] Sarah: That’s a long
[00:02:23] Elise: time. Like literally since you’re born, right? Like, and so I guess there’s maybe not all those elements of friendship, but if you think of like your neighbor hood friends, like those are really like the first people you start playing with.
Like the first, right? Like
[00:02:37] Sarah: it’s the first people you create so much intimacy with, right? Yeah. The first people that really become your second family. Yeah, totally.
[00:02:46] Elise: Is that the longest? Do you, and I mean, now I think it’s interesting too of like how we all live. Like I just noticed that even how I live now, like growing up like we were best friends with our neighbors.
That doesn’t really, I don’t know if other, maybe if people that have kids, it’s different. But like I, I don’t notice that as much as an adult. Like being best friends with the people across the street from. Like I was
[00:03:07] Sarah: when I was here. I get that. I get that. I actually was just talking to my best friend about this mm-hmm.
And we were talking about how, you know, when, on the street that I used to live on when I was living at, with my parents, um, there would always be so many kids and every, the entire neighborhood were friends, right? Like all the kids were friends. It didn’t matter about your age, it didn’t matter how you looked.
Like none of that mattered. And they were always outside playing, riding bikes, scooters, and like roller blades. Like the, my street was very active. And then if I go back to visit, it’s dead. Like there’s nobody playing, there’s nobody outside having fun. People would do garage sales, I remember. Mm-hmm. . And they wouldn’t even do, uh, like yard sales.
And they just do like street parties. Like it was fun. It was alive, right. But now I guess that emotional intimacy has definitely increased. And if you think about it decreased, sorry. But if you think about it, like our lives have changed so much with Covid and just so many things to be kind of more worried about.
about the world around us anymore that we don’t entirely feel safe making those connections anymore, right? Mm-hmm. so, or we make them all online. Mm-hmm. , our environment has definitely changed cuz I know when I was a kid I did not have access to a phone and the only thing I had was to go outside and make friends.
Mm-hmm like that is what you had to do. Were forced to do that.
[00:04:22] Elise: Yeah. And you’re right, it’s so different now, but that, it’s interesting that those friendships were the longest and still like still currently in my life anyway. And you know, I think Why that question of like why are you still friends? Yeah.
[00:04:38] Sarah: Why is this ? You said 36, 37 years. How is it still happening? Why are you guys,
[00:04:45] Elise: I think it’s because what you said, it’s because you do and maybe it’s specific to neighbors. No, I don’t even know if this is specific to neighbors. Cause I think of the friends that we made when we were young cuz even like the next step beyond those friendships, of neighbors would be like your school friends.
Mm-hmm. . Right. And I still have one of my friends who I’m going to her cottage this weekend. I literally met in nursery school, so I would’ve been like four or five. And then the next step from that would maybe be the ones you met in like sports, which like they were all over this weekend too. Like with their fam.
Those were family friends too. So I guess why you’re still friends is I think bigger than the individual relationship in some ways. And because they’re part of these like ecosystems and communities. So when I think of like the neighbors, um, very much like part of the family. . And, and I think about the, I mean, even the friends that are families made in sports, again, come to all the family functions like you really integrate into these.
And when I think of my friend from nursery school and then my friends in junior, senior, kindergarten, that will all also be there this weekend. Like, I think it’s because we’ve created this, this group. So it’s not necessarily like one friendship because when you think of just two individuals and you tell me, but my guess is two individuals, it’s harder to maintain as a, as a friendship than if there’s a group that like if you have two, if someone’s not feeling it, they can kind of pull away, right?
But if you have a group, say you have five and one person’s not feeling it and they kind of take a second, one of those other four might have the bandwidth to kind of. reach out and pull back in. Right. Versus when you’re in a group of two, if one pulls away the other’s like, oh, they’re pulling away again.
I don’t have capacity for this. Then it starts to break away. So I, I could agree.
[00:06:40] Sarah: I could agree with that. Definitely Being someone who was, I’m personally with someone who just kind of relied on having very individual friendships and then moving into having more of a group setting. Now I could see, yeah.
When there is an imbalance in, you know, a relationship in the friendship, you definitely, I definitely noticed that the other members of the group will definitely try to aid in trying to, you know, bring that back in or help you resolve it or to, you know, reduce the conflict in some type of way. So that’s great because you’ve created a lot of emotional safety between each other.
Mm-hmm. , for me, my LA long, longest standing relationship would be roughly thir anywhere between 13 to 15 years. Mm-hmm. . So it’s definitely a long time and it’s one specific individual and we met in, Middle school and it was just like the most craziest way, the most stupidest thing ever. And then ever since we have been, you know, we’ve been friends, and we’ve been through, you know, a lot, right?
And like you said, being just an individual group. But I think groups also definitely go through it as well because relationships and friendships are always evolving. Yes. And they’re actually not much different from our intimate relationships with, um, our significant others, right? They all require the same ingredients to keep going.
Right. They may look different on the outside, but on the inside they require the same amount of love, attention, you know, and kindness, um, from both parties. So why have we, you know, still remain friends? Oh my God. We still remain friends because we are able to resolve our conflict in a way that is much different than any other relationship.
And I think that’s more something we’ve worked on in the past couple years. Right. And. , we’ve always treated each other like sisters, right? And like any sisters, we fight, right? Mm-hmm. . And what’s great is that we were able to create a process when we do get into arguments and fights and when we do not agree with each other, right?
And I think that’s kind of the beauty of our relationship at least, is that we have really beautiful moments. And when we have moments that don’t feel that great, we don’t lash out at each other to the point that we need to end the relationship. Right? We, I would say that it is a myth to ever think that to ever, never to never have a thought that you ever wanted to leave the relationship, right?
There has to be, you know, some type of wanting or longing to let go, but that actually ends up bringing you closer. So, , I think in the weirdest way, loving each other also comes from giving each other the freedom. Freedom to love each other from a distance, if that’s the case. Mm-hmm. . So something we’ve talked about, at least me and my friend, me and my best friend, was we gave each other permission to walk away if the relationship was never serving us right?
If we were never feeling full and whole and content in the relationship, we said, as hard as it is gonna be to let go, we want you to be happy. Like I want you to be happy. That is my result for you. That is my end. Go through that is my intention for you. Right? And if I ever impede on that, I want you to know that it’s okay to walk away.
Right? It’s okay and it is gonna be hard, but I can support that decision. And what that ended up doing was allowing us to admit that, yeah, there were times we wanted to walk away, but it actually made us wanna bring us closer together. And when we gave each other the emotional freedom, To say it’s okay to leave if you need to.
If I impede on your happiness. that brought us so much closer together, and you created so much more emotional intimacy because we were no longer feeling the pressure of needing to stay with each other if it didn’t work out. And what about our families? And what about this and what about that? And what about, you know, X, Y, and Z and our group of friends, like we really set each other free.
And because we set each other free, it allowed us to create so much more capacity within ourselves to love each other, that our emotional vulnerability with each other is through the roof. Right now we’re able to be there for each other on a way we never did before, right? And we even express things like jealousy when it comes up in the relationship.
Like friendships have jealousy, right? It’s well, the weirdest way, there’s an ingredient in there, right? And again, like I talked about in a previous podcast, like jealousy is just a reminder of your admiration for them, right? Why you love them and why you want some of the things that they have, right? And you can use your friends to get there, right?
So, . Learning how to work as a team with your friends was something that me and my best friend had to really work on. And we’re there now, right? But in the beginning we were always saw each other as individuals, right? Never together, right? We were individuals from different families from different spaces.
And although we called each other family, there was still this little stigma, right? And between there, that may cause a separation. That’s because we didn’t have enough emotional vulnerability in the relationship. So after breaking that barrier, we were able to say no. Like, this is my family, right? Like, I would ride or die regardless, right?
If they were blood or not. And I think that’s kind of what made our relationship so much stronger was setting each other free, setting each other’s, um, like vulnerabilities free, and allowing us to express who we really are and be accepted for who we are and how we feel, and the way that we think, even if the other person doesn’t agree, right?
So loving our differences really brought us together. No.
[00:12:05] Elise: I love that. Sounds like such a beautiful relationship that you, like came up with that framework and you’re right. A lot of the things that we talked about in intimate relationships kind of play into here. But I’m curious, there’s some things that I, I do think can be a little different in friendships and I’m curious too, how you would suggest going about this.
So I think we, you know, we talked a little bit about the evolution of friendship and that you’re not gonna necessarily always be best friends with your best friend. Right? So you talked about there with your friend, like giving each other the space if the relationship’s not serving how in a, in a friendship, cuz I think it’s in a intimate relationship you can almost be like, I need a break.
Mm-hmm. How do you like in a friendship vocalize that, like where you don’t, because I feel it’s almost like. I don’t wanna say it’s more hurtful in a friendship, but I think that sometimes it could be taken in a different way. Like I think it’s, you know, you could say I need space in a, in a, you could do it in both scenarios, but I feel like in a friendship it, cause maybe they’re just so long standing, I could see how that would be hard to not like need a friendship breakup.
Maybe we’ll get into friendship breakups next. Yeah. But like, how could you articulate some space like so you can, like maybe you’re dealing with your own things, maybe it’s not serving you the friendship in the same way. How would you kind of articulate that? Sounds like you and your friend gave each other a bit of a framework.
But what’s that middle ground of like needing a bit of a break?
[00:13:41] Sarah: So before the framework, we actually took a break from each other. Did you? Okay. Yeah. So how I like to view breaks is just taking some healthy, healthy time to reflect on you and who you are becoming. Something interesting is that every seven years your cells regenerate and you have new cells.
And if that’s the case and you’re becoming a new person every seven years, you are not the same as you were before. So your likes and dislikes won’t be the same. Right. And it’s healthy to acknowledge that biology as well to notice that. Okay, biochemically I’m not the same and then I the same person of seven years ago.
[00:14:14] Elise: Is that why they call it the seven year itch? Yeah. Like relation. Is it? Oh my gosh, that’s, yeah. Ok. Interesting. Yeah,
[00:14:21] Sarah: so we were kind of coming up on that cusp. Noticing that we were changing, we were being different people. You know, I know my healing, you know, really took off while her, she was still finding herself.
So we were in opposite areas of our life at that time when, whereas before, we were always in the same place. Right. And because we were only always in the same place, we shared a common interest, which Right. Gave us more to relate over. But then as you were changing, things started changing in the relationship.
And again, I started having to entertain, entertain thoughts of the, is this relationship serving me? , right? So when I noticed that I needed a break was that I needed the break to discover one, what I loved about her and whether or not I wanted to give that up, right? Mm-hmm. . So that’s how I like to frame a break.
It’s, I would need to come back to you in my own way, not by being with you and hanging out with you and spending time with you, but remembering why I needed this relationship in the first place. But if I find that I didn’t need it and that I couldn’t do it anymore, that I would walk away because I’d no longer wanna abandon myself and my needs, right?
I don’t no longer wanna suffocate myself in a relationship where I can’t be who I am or express who I am, especially now that I’m changing. So we took a bit of a break, and that break maybe happened roughly in about, about a month, right? And then we kind of reconvened and talked again, and we kind of talked about all the pain points that were happening in the relationship that caused the downward spiral, right?
That caused the shift that caused a disconnect. . And from there it created so much intimacy because we were able to go, okay, wow. Like I didn’t know you felt that way, and I didn’t know you thought that way. Right. But here’s what I realized in my break, is that I don’t wanna walk away. Right. And that we, when we first, you know, became friends, we made this mutual agreement that we actually wanted to be in each other’s lives mutually.
And we wanted to be there until the end. And it’s funny because your friends become your soulmates too. So you know, Absolut. Yeah. So I think your friends also, you know, become part of your life and part of people that you don’t necessarily marry, but you marry in your heart, right? Mm-hmm. , these are people that you begin to love and you show so much love and kindness and they really know who you are, right?
Mm-hmm. . So they’re no different than any relationship, but express that, right? So say there is someone in your life where you’re going, Hey, I just need, you know, I need a bit of a break, or I need a bit of, you know, space or, you know, change. That’s okay. You know, express that. And I’m not walking away and I’m not making a decision on whether or not I wanna leave.
I just need to remember why, right? I just need to know. I have to get back to my roots again. And once you’re grounded again, you can make a decision from that point forward and how it best serves you. Right? Well, and I
[00:16:59] Elise: think it’s so, like, it’s happened to me often where like I was really close with people and maybe university or college, and then I moved away.
So there was like, A cooling off period, not necessarily by intention or not, but like, and then I moved back and then there’s a re-engagement period. Or like, you know, people, to your point about you’re going through something similar in life, so you bond more with that certain person. I think all of those things kind of come into play.
Um, if you were to say like, what’s the key ingredient, and I think I have mine in my head, but, and I can say it first if you want, but like, what do you think is the key ingredient to a friendship? Well, what’s yours? Mine? Great start. Yeah. Mine is effort. Yeah. Like, it really like comes down to me, and I think this is true again, of all types of relationships, friendships, family, significant other, whatever, even you and I, mm-hmm.
right? As co-host. Like if, if someone’s not putting in the effort, then after like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times of trying. , I, I will stop or I’ll pull away, or, because that effort has to be reciprocated to some point, right? Like, so to me it, I think the key ingredient, and I see it too because like, because I’ve had friends that are from like childhood, it sounds like you as well, like mm-hmm.
If you don’t keep putting in that effort, your lives do become very different, can become very different, right? Like not everyone’s on the same path and will have, you know, those same shared experiences. So if you don’t put in that effort, if you’re not having those shared, shared experiences and you’re not putting in that effort to maintain or just be involved in someone’s life, then I think that it just kind of fades away.
It can fade away anyway. So that would be my like key ingredient in a good friendship or a long lasting. .
[00:18:50] Sarah: Yeah. And I think you’re right, right? We can get really tired and daunting and waste a lot of our time and our energy and who we are as people. Mm-hmm. giving it away to, you know, a cup that has a hole in it, right?
Mm-hmm. where it’s just being like flooded out. So I love that you’re noticing, um, when what people fill you up and what people don’t, right? Mm-hmm. . So that’s, that’s really important. Um, I think I have, I think I have two things maybe that. , I think would be a great ingredient for a relationship. And the first one is kind of going off of what you were talking about, but mutual affection and learning about each other’s love languages, right?
So as much as learning about your love languages stems from your significant others, it happens in your relationships too. So your friendships and something that me and my partner, me and my partner, well yeah, my partner, , me and my best friend talked about was how we like to love each other. And we noticed we were having a lot of conflict because she wasn’t loving me the way I wanted to be loved.
I wasn’t loving her the way she wanted to be loved. And not recognizing that each person has an individual way of showing love, right? Mm-hmm. . And are we willing to accept that that’s how that person makes effort, right? So their mutual affection. And what I noticed was that I am more. Someone that likes to give words of affirmation.
I’m someone that likes to encourage, I’m a very talkative lover. And then for her, she’s more of a gift giver. So she loves giving gifts to show her appreciation. She loves making time for you kind of thing. So her way of loving is a little different when maybe I don’t have all the time in the world to give, but getting that text from me saying, Hey, you’re doing a good job.
How are you? Right? Or, Hey, I heard you got that promotion, like amazing. And cheering her on. That’s actually what deep down is what she really needed too. Mm-hmm. , right? So we’ve began, begun to accept each other, accept each other’s love languages even though we’re at a distance, right? So for her, again, gift giving, for me it’s Words of affirmation.
So, and that could be different for everyone. And for us, we were willing to accept that this is the way this person loves to give love. And because I fully honor and respect that person, and I love this person, that I’m willing to allow them to show me that love. And in whichever way they wanna give it, and I’m content receiving it, right?
It does fill me up. Mm-hmm. , I do feel good about it, but if you don’t feel good about it, you’re allowed to walk away from a relationship, right? Mm-hmm. . And you can find what does fill you up. But we’ve had that compassion and mutual respect with each other, where we’ve learned that through a lot of mistakes, obviously, and then come to this point where we have that mutual understanding.
Um, another one I would say is emotional respect. And I think that’s a big one because, , every relationship is highly emotional. , whether it is, you know, whether you’re just starting out or whether it’s years into the future or years in, um, every emotion co, I mean every relationship stems from these, this emotional intimacy.
So creating really deep, intimate bonds and having respect for each other when we were feeling something negative towards the other person, for example, or feeling something positive towards the other person, for example. And being able to express that and then being able to allow the other person to express that.
So, you know, maybe when someone is crying, not saying, oh my God, you’re okay. It’s gonna be fine. Stop crying. Right? That’s how we tell them to invalidate their feelings and no, that’s not okay. Right? Because we actually don’t know if it’s gonna be okay. Right? We, we can’t promise that. So what I don’t like to do is I don’t like to tell someone to stop crying.
I don’t like to offer tissues and I don’t like to, um, . I don’t like to say it’s gonna be okay because I don’t know that what if it’s not gonna be, I can’t make any promises, right? But what I can do is be your anchor and your safety in this moment. And for us, that created so much more vulnerability between the two of us.
And it created so much energy in which we want to keep exchanging between each other over and over because we wanna create more emotional intimacy where there are boundaries, but at the same time, there’s enough love and respect. So I think those two are kind of the big ticket for me.
[00:23:11] Elise: And what do you, no, that’s interesting.
I, I think you sound like you have very evolved friendships, now. I do for sure. What, like, so we talked about, you know, relationship red flags that I think would probably fall a lot into friendships, like we said. But what are some friendship, like green flags Ooh. Yeah. That you would say are out there?
Maybe, and maybe these are like green flags when you’re looking to make a new friend because it is, you know, harder to maybe make some friends when you’re older. So what are some things in present day you would look for, um, in a friend? . Okay.
[00:23:45] Sarah: So I can, I can list off a few that, you know, come off the top of my head.
Um, you share common interests, so that’s a big one, being able to share common interests. But if you don’t have common interests, are you okay with loving and respecting and accepting the person as they are? Right. And that, that’s a big one. Um, you’re able to share your thoughts and feelings in order to create intimacy.
So you’re, you’re open to being vulnerable with this person. Mm-hmm. . Um, you listen to each other. I know in the last one we talked about relationship red flags and not listening was a big one, but being able to listen is a green flag and active listening. Um, having conflict with each other is a green flag, um, because you need conflict in order to grow and evolve through pain.
So, um, being able to have healthy conflict with them, being able to have a process in which you resolve it and knowing kind of your fight languages, I think is really, really important. Trust and honesty, I think make a really deep, meaningful, um, Quality, healthy friendship. Um, emotional respect like I talked about earlier.
Encouragement and celebration. That is a big
[00:24:51] Elise: one. Mm-hmm. . Um, I love that celebration cuz I don’t feel like we, like, celebrate our friendships in the same way we celebrate our, like in romantic relationships, right? Like you have those milestones of romantic relationships. Like this your anniversary, this is your wedding, this is like, , those kind of pieces, but in friendship, like, I don’t ha, I don’t never celebrated like a friendship anniversary actually.
[00:25:11] Sarah: Yeah. So that’s something me and my best friend has started doing. One well wanna start doing this year after we know had our break and we talked about it. We were like, we should celebrate how far we’ve come. You know what I mean? Um, so celebrating your friendships are really good. And celebrating milestones within yourself that you share with your friends.
So, promotions, birthdays, um, you know, raises, just anything, anything at all. You know, moving out, getting a new job, whatever it is, celebrating them can really help not only aid in the support, but help keep them motivated to not only the friendship, but to whatever they’re doing. So if that’s really, really important.
Um, mutual affection. So knowing each other’s love languages is really good. Shared decision making. How many times have we all, you know, Just ran around in circles, just trying to decide where you wanna eat . Like,
[00:25:59] Elise: you know what I mean? Funny. Yeah. I’m always the planner and I had this debate with my friend that I mentioned the other day that we’ve been friends with since we were like born.
Yeah. She’s like, you’re just so good at it. She’s like trying to pile on the compliments of how good I am at planning. And I’m like, it’s cuz you just don’t wanna do it though. . Like,
[00:26:15] Sarah: so you’ve taken ownership of it. . I hear that. But that, that’s a really good one. And then just added support. Right? So just being there to support them even when you don’t agree.
Right. So, um, we don’t always have to agree with the decisions of our friends. Right. And I think that’s what we think we have to do, but what we can do is still notice it and accept them for their decision. Right. So instead of walking away, maybe taking some time to understand the decision from their point of view and understanding it from your point of view as well.
Right. Mm-hmm. , um, I know there’s a lot of times where my best friend and I have got into, um, areas of our friendship where. , there were decisions we’ve made individually that for ourselves that didn’t, you know, align with the other person. And there were times where we’ve had to express that we don’t agree and because we didn’t agree, yeah, it created some friction.
But I was able to, like we were both able to come to a point where we’re allowed to love each other even if we don’t agree with each other. Mm-hmm. . So not clouding those two things and noticing that we still love each other even if we don’t agree. And even if I don’t agree, that shouldn’t stop you from pursuing the thing that you wanna do.
Right? Because you need to validate that for yourself. You need to be able to make those decisions for yourself because we’ve said each other free, right? Mm-hmm. .
[00:27:32] Elise: Hmm. And when it comes to, so those are some kind of like good green flags. When does it reach a point, and it sounds like you and your friend didn’t get to this point cuz you came back to each other.
But when is it like, okay, this is time to let go of this friendship? Like is there certain like, , top three things you might consider when you’re evaluating, if it’s time to let something go. Mm-hmm. ,
[00:27:57] Sarah: um, they put you down every chance they get. That’s a big one. Um, if you’re constantly around someone who just has something negative to say about you all the time, they don’t lift you up.
They don’t make you feel loved. They don’t make you feel safe. That’s a really big, kind of red flag, and that’s an indicator that you either need to have a conversation and work this out, or that you need to walk away from the relationship. Because if they’re not willing to put that effort into make those changes, then again you’ll be pouring into a cup with, you know, Always pouring into their cup and never pouring into your own.
Mm-hmm. Um, another one I would say is jealousy. Right? So jealousy can really turn into deep hatred and that deep hatred could really turn into things like revenge. So we wanna be careful of when those, those, you know, those moments are coming up. So this could be anything from always wanting to one up, you always needing to be one step ahead of you.
Um, maybe, you know, disrespecting you in any way when it does come to things that you have that they are maybe jealous of. Um, and even if they’re not saying the mean comments that are swirling around in their head, it’s gonna come off in their energy, right? So it’s gonna come off in their aura and maybe passive aggressive communication so you’ll know when this is happening and we don’t want it to get to hatred.
but it does definitely stem from a lot of anger and resentment for themselves, which is being projected onto you. And if that can’t be resolved within themselves, then this is not an, this is not a relationship that encourages celebration and encouragement and happiness and that’s where you want to make that distinction.
[00:29:38] Elise: No, quite interesting. No, I love that. It’s interesting, like it really, they probably are some of the longest lasting relationships in your lives because there is breakups, there is divorce.
Yeah. And you don’t see that at like, it almost like those friendships stick AR can stick around longer than some of your more intimate relationships. So For sure, very kind of like important piece of who we
[00:30:03] Sarah: are. . Yeah, and I think this, I guess something I’ve learned through my life of going through many friendships and you know, maybe cutting off a lot of people and integrating more people into my life and just dropping friends and having friends.
Just, you know, that natural flow of friendship. Something I’ve noticed is that even if the relationship ends badly, it’s taught you, a large part taught you about alar large part of yourself. Mm-hmm. and something. It teaches you a lot about your boundaries and what you’ll tolerate and what you won’t tolerate.
But I think our teachers, just like our emotions, are our teachers. Our friends are our teachers too. So they come to with all this, you know, pain, or they come with happiness, or they come with excitement, or they come with jealousy and they come with all these parts of themselves so that you could also learn about a part of you, whether that came from, you know, your suffering, whether that came from your happiness, whether that came at the expense of whatever it is that it came at.
It’s healthy to recognize that. our, the people in our lives come to teach us something, they come with a lesson, and if we refuse to notice that lesson, we’ll just keep repeating the same mistakes with friends in the future. Right. So being mindful of when you need to end the relationship or when you need to keep one is really important to make that distinction within yourself and know that everything comes with a reason, everything comes with a divine purpose, and if you are moving in kind of your divine health, then it will always move forward for you.
[00:31:33] Elise: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here with us again today. Can you share a little bit about where everyone can find more information on
[00:31:41] Sarah: you? Yes. So you can find me at my website at sarahjospehcertifiedcoaching.com you can find me on Instagram, on TikTok and Twitter, and you can also check out my article, which is on shemadedigital on my five step process.
[00:31:54] Elise: Awesome. Thanks so much for being here today, Sarah. Looking forward to next week.
The post Let’s Talk About Emotional Intelligence: Friendship appeared first on STYLE Canada.