Hello, welcome to or welcome back to Traina to Care.
If you're new here, my name's Ashley.
So happy to have you.
I upload every single Monday and we just hang out, we chit chat, we have a good time.
Me on the other hand, I'm not having a good time right now.
I did barre for the first time yesterday.
If you don't know what that is, it's like a, it's kind of like Pilates.
The way they explained it to me is it's kind of like ballet, kind of like dance, kind of like Pilates.
I guess a lot of dancers do it.
you're on your tippy toes you're doing pulses you're doing planks you're doing everything that's so goddamn hard but I told myself I'm gonna do bar because I need a workout class that's gonna make me bust a sweat you know like when I go to the gym I'm doing pretty light work I'm not being pushed to strive for much I lightly walk on the treadmill I do my little weights and I don't really feel like I'm getting a workout in and if I'm honest I haven't been to the gym since we moved into this house which was a month ago which isn't a bad thing at all but i want to work out to get stronger to be healthier
and i just feel like getting into workout classes will really push me to do that because i was doing zumba and then they canceled zumba so i am trying bar my point is it's so hard every single muscle in my body is sore it It feels like I just got hit by a train.
It feels like I got my ass kicked in my sleep.
My ribs hurt. It hurts to breathe.
I don't know what that means.
I don't know if that's normal.
I don't know if I'm just really out of shape.
All I know is I'm on well.
But I am going to stick to it.
So I will update you on how it goes.
I go to Pure Bar. There's like a few different classes with Pure Bar.
So let me know if you take them and what you recommend.
I don't know, man, but I'm trying.
A topic that kind of pops off when I talk about it and you guys seem to really like is friendships.
Whenever I talk about friendships, you guys are down.
You want to hear more about it.
But when I talk about friendships, I'm usually speaking about them from the point of view of someone who has been left out or gives more than they get or just feels really lonely.
I know so many of you can relate to that.
But I also want to emphasize that those feelings aren't forever.
You're not always going to feel alone or left out.
You're You're not always going to feel like your friends are out to get you or that they don't like you.
And I can speak on that because I've experienced it more times than I hope anyone has to.
But where I am in my life right now, I'm not experiencing that.
I have really, really good girlfriends and I'm very, very lucky.
So in today's episode, I want to emphasize the importance of female friendships because unfortunately, I think they can be pushed to the back burner for a variety of different reasons like getting into a new relationship or prioritizing friendships with men or just looking at friendships as disposable.
I want to talk about why female friendships are so sacred and so special and why you should be prioritizing them more in your life and I also want to give you tips on how to make genuine friendships that last. So with that being said let's get into today's episode.
Female friendships are so so so so so much much more intimate and vulnerable than the typical male friendship and I've spoken about this in an episode I think I called it why female friendships are difficult spoilers because they take time and energy and effort but there is just so many more layers when it comes to women and their friendships than men and their friendships like the example that I gave in that episode was my fiance could go golfing with one of his guy friends who is going through a breakup spend four plus hours with them golfing and when he comes home and I asked like hey how is so -and -so getting
through the breakup how is he my fiance might look at me and be like how the hell am I supposed to know that it's like well I don't know you just spent four plus hours with this guy you guys didn't talk about it and they might have but it probably was very brief like how are you I'm good okay let's go golf whereas if I spent four plus hours with one of my girlfriends I would know every single detail of that breakup that's not to say that every guy's friendship is like that and that's not to say that my fiance doesn't have friendships that are more intimate and more deep than that but at the core
of most they're not as open with each other as women are with one another women connect over vulnerability we connect over mutual sharing i share a secret with you you share a secret with me you share an intimate detail of your life i share an intimate detail of my life Men and their friendships sometimes end up being very surface level.
They talk about sports.
They talk about their hobbies.
They enjoy food together.
And the emotional sharing falls short.
There's this quote that I heard that I really love, which is men's friendships are side -by -side looking out.
Women's friendships are face -to -face looking deep.
That is how our friendships with one another continue and grow.
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
Sometimes the wellness side of the internet can be a lot.
especially when you're in a funk or struggling with your mental health and you're trying to find something to make you feel better and you're like, I don't even know where to start or what to do.
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Going for a walk? Taking vitamins?
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As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise talk it out with better help our listeners get 10 off their first month at betterhelp .com slash tntc that's better h e l p dot com slash tntc personally i am not able to get close to someone and be able to call them my best friend if we're not connecting on an emotional level i look back at friendships where we'd hang out all the time but I still wasn't able to call them my best friend and it was because we really were only partying together.
We weren't sharing anything more than drinks and a good time.
I wasn't comfortable with them you know sitting and opening up about my life because we just didn't have that with one another or at least we didn't try to but that's the thing about female friendships.
When you are ready and you are comfortable to be open and share with one another the friendship becomes so special and so sacred and something that can't be replicated with your significant other or with your guy friends like yes I know that your relationship is super special and I know you love your boyfriend my fiance is my best friend but it's not the same like it's not the same kind of relationship that I have with my girls I love my fiance but my fiance and my guy friends are never going to understand the struggle of being a woman they're never going to understand what it's like to be so misunderstood
and so overanalyzed and so objectified and so taken advantage of or just to have such high expectations put on you from literally everyone but still viewed as less than a man and they're also just never going to relate to our sisterhood they're never going to know what it was like to play with barbies and chew on poly pocket clothes they're not going to know what it was like to be so obsessed with Hannah Montana and the Cheetah Girls they're not going to know what it was like to transition from wearing limited to to Hollister they're not going to know what it's like to start playing with makeup
and wearing a push -up bra which isn't a bad thing I don't expect them to get those things we have different experiences and they're just not going to get me the way that my girls get me like I was hanging out with one of my best friend and her fiance and I'm always trying to get her fiance to listen to Taylor Swift because I really do believe that there's a Taylor Swift song for everyone they're so niche they're so detailed like I know that there's a song for you and one night my best friend had said like I showed him the all too well 10 minute version and he didn't like it and we kind of had
this moment where we're like well of course like he's just not gonna get it which isn't a bad thing My fiance listened to it and he liked it because he likes Taylor Swift and he likes storytelling, but he can't relate to it either.
It's a good song, but he doesn't listen to it the way that me and my girls listen to it.
They're never going to get that.
I think about the first time I heard All Too Well and I was crying because of how much I could relate to it.
It's such a niche song.
It's such specific moments.
And when I listened to it, I was like, like how do I have the same experiences as Taylor Swift?
It feels like she's in my mind.
Women just have this unspoken understanding of one another.
We have such shared experiences.
Most men haven't had the same experience with dating that I've had or my best girlfriends have or many of you have. I can share my experience of dating an older guy, being a freshman in high school and being taken advantage of by a senior and so many of you unfortunately can relate to that.
I can share my experience of being love bombed to being completely abandoned by a guy and again unfortunately so many of you can relate.
I can share my experience with difficulties eating and body dysmorphia and unfortunately there's too many of you that know that too well.
My fiance has been with me when I've been at my lowest and he's such a great partner and he's able to be there for me and comfort me and listen to me and shower me with love but there's things that he just doesn't get like times where I've said I can't eat fast food again because I already had that today I can't eat unhealthy that many times in one day because I'm gonna feel guilty about that and I'm gonna spiral he hears that and he doesn't know what I'm talking about to him it's just food it's not that deep it's not something he thinks about he can listen to me and be there for me and he can calm
me down but he's not going to truly understand my mindset in that moment and understand why I'm having such a hard time why I'm having a meltdown over McDonald's or over Taco Bell whereas if I had that issue with one of my girlfriends they might be like hey I know exactly how you feel and this is what I went through and this is what helped me overcome it they're able to actually put put themselves in my shoes because they've been there too.
They've had the same struggle as me as a woman.
This episode is sponsored by Graza.
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And although it is very unfortunate that we can all relate to things that we wish we didn't how special is it that there's a person out there or there's people out there that just get you that see you because they see themselves in you they've gone through similar experiences they've juggled the same emotions and burdens they carry the same baggage and scars like you don't have to hide yourself to be accepted or loved if anything with female friendships, you're accepted more for letting your guard down and being vulnerable.
But with being so deep also comes being so unserious.
The thing that's so great about female friendships is how we can hold space for so many things at once.
I could very well be trauma dumping to my best friend and midway through we're cackling because of an inside joke or the way that I said a certain word or a random thought that popped up in our minds.
I could share a story about something that really upset me and then 10 minutes later, my best friend's cracking jokes about it or making fun of me and making fun of my 10 -minute meltdown.
Or there's times where you're bawling your eyes out over a guy that just broke up with you and your friend's there comforting you and making sure you're good.
But once you seem stable, they're like, okay, well, he's ugly.
He's so ugly. You you get a kick out of lightly bullying but would kick someone's ass if they did the same thing to her it's a kind of love that you just don't get unless you have it for yourself that's what makes me so sad when I see girls isolating themselves to just their partner and you know of course you can look at it as like well I don't want to hang out with anyone else because I love my boyfriend friend he's my best friend but what if you didn't have your boyfriend what if out of the blue he broke up with you who would you lean on for support and I can say this because I've been that girl
I've been that girl who stops talking to their friends when you get a boyfriend and I can tell you it doesn't end well community is so important when you need help because they're there lifting you up and vice versa you show up for each other and help each other through hard times whatever that may be I mean life is full of grieving and loss and unpredictable times you might think that you're strong and you're good but even the strongest people need support and that's what your girls are for they're going to be there emotionally and physically if you let them and you show up for them too that's
a really important part of making genuine friendships especially with with women.
You can't just want a good group of friends or want a friend who would drop everything for you if you're not ready to step up and be that friend for them.
Female friendships crash and burn for many reasons.
Some of the reasons being when it starts feeling like a competition, when you're no longer on the same team and one of you is making the other feel inferior, or you feel like like your friends isn't there supporting you anymore, isn't rooting for your success.
Another reason is that the trust has been broken.
I mean, female friendships really thrive on being able to share things in secrecy, being able to lay everything out on the table and know that it's going to stick between the two of you.
And another reason is there's not a good balance of give and take.
Female friendships also rely heavily on reciprocation.
It doesn't always have to be equal, but if it's always one person giving more or doing more it's not going to work you both need to be giving some type of effort or it's going to crash and burn now I want to transition to talk about how to attract real genuine female friendships because like I've said a million times they're so special and can teach you so much about yourself and really improve your life I think a lot of us have been scarred from a friendship breakup with a girl and because of that it's difficult to put yourself out there and want to make new friends especially when you've been
through multiple friendship breakups and you're like why does this keep happening what's wrong with me what am I doing wrong and I've definitely been in that position before but I've come to realize that for me I kept running into this issue because I really was just allowing anyone to fill up my cup I wanted friends so badly I wanted to be in a friend group so badly i wanted to be accepted so badly that my expectations were really really low and i wasn't making friends based off genuine connection or sharing a mutual interest i was making friends off of meeting people if someone showed interest
in me and wanted to be my friend i was pretty accepting of that unless i thought they were a bad person or it was obvious that we didn't share share the same values or morals but if someone's like hey I think you're cool want to hang out I was like sure yeah let's hang out let's do it being friendly and being able to get along with everyone is a great trait to have it's a great thing to be but it can bite you in the ass I'm here wondering why these girls that I'm hanging out with every weekend at the bars aren't reaching out to me asking me to get lunch or go to the gym or go shopping with them
during the week week but we never established what the friendship was we kind of built our friendship off of getting drunk and going partying together to them i might just be another girl who is down to party and i'm looking at them thinking like oh those are my girls those are my besties it's like when you start hooking up with someone in your head you might be thinking this is the love of my life like we're gonna work on this and we're gonna date and we're gonna be exclusive and we're gonna fall on love and this person's just thinking we're friends with benefits and that's it and they're not looking
for a relationship.
If you're looking for a serious relationship with someone, if you're looking to date someone who wants to be exclusive with you and is serious about you, you need to look for people who are looking for the same thing, not someone who's just looking for a good time and just wants to hook up.
It's the same thing with friendships.
If you are looking for genuine female female friendships.
You need to look for people who are looking for the same thing as you.
So get clear on what type of friends you're looking for.
Are you looking for friends to do a specific activity with?
Are you looking for friends for emotional support?
Are you looking for friends who are interested in the same hobbies as you or the same music as you or the same books as you?
Are you looking for friends who have the same opinion and values as you?
I mean, that's a big one that you should be kind of thinking about because when you don't establish that before making new friends and you get involved with someone that you know nothing about and then you sit down with them and you have a conversation with them and you guys clearly aren't aligning on your values it's really difficult to continue a healthy functioning friendship with them because in the back of your mind you don't respect them which leads to one of the reasons I was saying that friendships crash and burn, there's not a level playing field.
If you're looking down on your friend because of their values or their beliefs, it's going to make your friendship unbalanced and you're both going to feel it and it's not going to end up working.
It's totally fine to disagree with someone and have a different opinion, but if you know going into that friendship that you have very different opinions and very different values, you can save yourself the trouble and look for friends who actually align with you instead of trying to make something work that probably isn't going to work.
If you're not quite sure on what type of friendship you're looking for, ask yourself, what is important to me?
What are things that I like to do?
What are things that I like to talk about?
What are things that are very important to me or that I'm very passionate about?
What are things in past friendships that fell short or that you felt out like you weren't being heard on what are your friendship red flags what didn't you like about your past friendships or how they ended thinking about all of that will tell you a lot about what you're looking for and what you're not looking for and what you want in a friend once you know what it is that you want and what you're expecting out of your friendships start showing up in those ways.
Start showing up where your values are.
For example, if you want friends who are supportive of you, go out of your way to comment on people's social media posts and gas them up.
If you want friends who aren't a fitness, start going to workout classes.
If you want friends who have specific views, start speaking publicly about what you believe in.
Be the person that you're trying to attract.
Be that friend that you wish to have. Like embody whatever it is that you're looking for.
Be it to attract it.
If you want friends who are going to show up for you and check in and follow through on plans, you need to be doing that as well.
If you want friends to be celebrating your accomplishments, you need to be rooting so hard for them too.
If you want friends who are really good at communicating, you need to work on that right now and be ready to have Have difficult conversations and problem solve so when issues come up, you know how to deal with them.
You need to clock in and stand on business if this is what you want in your friendships.
Another thing that I want to add is you need to stop stripping yourself to please other people.
You need to stop pretending to be something that you're not.
If you want friends who love you as you are and accept you as you are and like the same things as you, you need to stop hiding who you are.
If you want friends who are on the same page as you and have the same amount of energy as you, you need to stop dimming your light because you're attracting the wrong kind of people who don't match your energy.
Stop playing it cool.
Stop pretending that you don't care and that connection isn't important to you because clearly it is important to you.
You want friends who actually give a shit about you, but when they text you, you wait a day to respond even though you read the message in like a minute because you don't want to seem too available or too needy you want friends to ask you to hang out who actually want to be around you but when they invite you places you say no because you don't want to seem annoying stop overthinking everything that you do and everything that you say and how others are perceiving you and just be yourself because when you are yourself you're going to attract people who are just like you and that are looking for the same
things as you the last thing that I want want to touch on in this episode is how important it is to show up for yourself in order to show up for your friends I know for a lot of you you want to please the people around you you have people pleasing tendencies which isn't a bad thing I mean the reason that you want to people please is because you care about these people and you want them to be happy and you love them you want them to love you but when you're doing this and you're not also taking care of yourself and you're not taking care of your needs, you end up being a bad friend in the long
run because you can only people please for so long before you burn out or before you become resentful.
For example, if you're always saying yes to plans with your friends and you're ignoring what you actually want to do and you're always just like, yeah, let's do what you want to do.
What I want to do? Not an option.
Let's say that you're in desperate need of a self -care day because you've been neglecting yourself and your mental health isn't doing so good it's at a decline but your friend invites you to go out so you say yes to them even though you clearly need to stay in and rest and do the things that are going to make you feel good although in that moment you think you're doing the right thing you think you're being a good friend by saying yes to them because you're showing up for them in the long run it's going to backfire because you're not taking care of for yourself and that's going to end up coming
out one way or another whether it's you giving them a bad attitude because you're exhausted or you're pissed off that you're doing something that you don't want to actually do or you end up having resentment for them because they're taking up too much of your time even though you're responsible for what you do with your time it's so important that you fulfill your needs so you don't end up resenting the other person and blaming them for things lacking in your life that also goes for working on your goals and taking care of the things that need to be taken care of in your life you need to work
on those things so you don't take it out on your friends when things don't go the way that you want them to or when you see your friends succeeding and you're like wait a minute why is their life going so great and my life is in shambles like i was saying before one of the reasons that friendships don't work is there's competition and you're no longer on the same team and you're no longer or supporting each other something that happens a lot is one friend sees their other friend doing amazing but things aren't going good for them so they start comparing themselves to their friend and they start
feeling bad about themselves and they end up resenting their friend for something their friend has no control over like it's not their responsibility to make sure that you're doing good or that you're taking care of your needs or that you're working towards your goals you need to do that it is a lot more difficult to show up for someone and root for them and actually be happy for them when you feel like you're lacking and that things aren't going good for you.
So if you want to be a cheerleader for your friend, if you want to be their number one fan, supporting them, celebrating their success, an easy way to do that is to also be working on yourself so you're not comparing yourself to them.
You can't pour into other cups when there's nothing in your cup.
That's why it's so hard to show up for someone when you're not showing up up for yourself if you're exhausted if you're feeling bad about yourself if you're not doing what you need to be doing to feel good how do you expect to be good to someone else and to show up for them in the way that they deserve do they deserve for you to be talking badly about them because you're jealous do they deserve for you to not be excited for them when they achieve something incredible because you're not doing anything with your life do they deserve passive aggressiveness from you because you don't know how to set
a boundary with them and you're taking it out on them?
Do they deserve you giving them a nasty attitude because you're in a bad mood?
No, they deserve better than that.
They deserve the best, especially if you're expecting so much from them.
If you want good friends, you also need to be a good friend and a good person.
Work on yourself and be better so you can not only be better for you, but also better for the people in your life I have definitely been burnt in past friendships and I very much understand the struggle of making friends especially in your 20s or if you're older like I want to do an episode where I talk about how to make friends as an adult because I know it's really hard but if you want that let me know I know what it's like to feel alone or be afraid of making new friends or want to have close girlfriends but not sure how to befriend them I think being intentional about what you want and who you
want to surround yourself with who you want to give your energy to is so important and also showing up for those people is so so so so important like I said a bunch of times female friendships are so special and they should be a priority in your life not just when it's convenient or when you need plans or when you're not dating someone one because when you do have good girlfriends or a good group of girls it is something that cannot be replicated.
I don't have actual sisters so having sisterhood in my friendships is something that I cherish and I just can't say enough how important female friendships are.
So whether you already have these types of friendships or you're trying to build on them or you're trying to look look for them.
Stay open and be clear about what you want and don't let past friendships scare you away from forming really great connections with other women.
If anything let that encourage you to make new friends because there's people like you who want friendships so bad, who want other women in their life and they're waiting for you too.
Honestly a good place to start is within this community with this podcast. I used to have a group chat with a bunch of girls who listen to of the podcast and we talk about our day what we're doing at work what we're doing at school affirmations what we're manifesting what we're drinking just literally anything like you're in a group chat with girls that you've known forever and it was so fun but um if you're still interested in that group chat and you want me to start that up again I would love to do that just let me know what app I should use or how I should set that up and what kind of things
you would like in that group chat what you guys want to talk about maybe we can do some type of book club I don't know but but there's so many girls who listen to this podcast who feel exactly like you, who are looking for friends just like you.
So let me know about the group chat.
You can also talk to each other in the Spotify comments if you're on there or, like, in my comment sections on social media.
Just let me know where a good place would be for a group chat or if you even want that.
But that is everything for today's episode.
I hope you loved it.
I hope it was helpful.
If you like Trying Not To Care, it would really help me out if you rated the podcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts share it with your friends if you think this podcast would help them or if they'd like that and if you ever do share the podcast on your story or you make a video on TikTok I always repost them I see literally every single one just so you know my socials are in the show notes my Instagram my TikTok my YouTube they're all linked there I hope you love today's episode I love you and I will talk to you next Monday bye
