- Hey everybody, today we're gonna talk
about ways we can best deal with a friend breakup
because unlike the ending of a romantic relationship
where we can vent to our best friend about it,
as often as we need to, when a close friendship ends,
we can feel lost, without support, and completely isolated.
But don't fret, there are things that we can do
to help us process the loss and move on healthfully.
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I wanna first talk about the fact
that we all go through friend breakups.
That doesn't mean that we're toxic or that they're toxic.
It just means we didn't go well together,
or we don't go all together anymore.
And as we get older, we can grow apart,
can have different goals, life views, and priorities.
I personally have gone through
three major friendship breakups,
and they were all different in how they actually ended,
but they happened for pretty much the same reason.
We didn't have anything in common anymore,
and our priorities were no longer the same.
And even though I was fine with all of them ending,
and for the most part, they were amicable breakups,
they still sucked.
I was still sad that they weren't in my life anymore.
And even though I knew that it was for the better,
I still wished I could call or text them sometimes.
And it was weird and hard, but that feeling did pass.
And that is why my first tip is to accept
that not all friendships are meant to last forever.
We change and grow and we won't always
be going in the same direction as our friends.
In my first book "Are you okay?"
I talked about how I like to believe
that we shed skins of our past self
and that if I'm continuing to change,
I could pass by someone on the street that I used to know,
and they wouldn't recognize me anymore.
And if we aren't growing towards the same things,
we can grow apart from each other and get to the point
where we don't know each other
or really recognize each other anymore.
In my experience, this happens as we get older
and move from one lifestyle, like maybe we,
back in the day, we were more outgoing
or at least going out more,
maybe wanting to meet more people,
into another phase, like wanting to settle down
or stay in or build on the relationships
that we already have.
Not everyone wants to move into a new lifestyle.
And if one member of the friendship does
while the other does not, well,
we will slowly have less in common
and our friendship will deteriorate.
Accepting that this happens is difficult,
but it's part of life,
and an important first step in healing
after a friend breakup.
My next tip, and I'm sure you could see this one coming,
is to grieve.
When we lose someone in our life,
we have to grieve that loss.
Too often people refer to grief and grieving
as something we only do when death happens,
but loss is loss, and whenever we lose someone
that was important to us, we are gonna have to grieve it.
So give yourself the time you need to feel sad, mad,
and even wish that things were different.
It's okay.
It will take time, but stuffing it down and pushing on
isn't gonna make it any better.
It will only prolong the shitty feelings.
Another tip, and one you should do right now,
right now, is unfollow them on social media.
I know this may sound petty, but it's not.
It's self preservation.
It's not gonna be helpful to see their highlight reel
or to know that they were hanging out
with some of our mutual friends and we weren't invited.
We have to be careful what media
we allow ourselves to consume,
because once we have that information in our head,
we can't get it out, you can't just delete it.
We can ruminate on it, get more upset,
and possibly lash out at someone
that we're still close with.
So protect yourself and your healing process
and unfollow them right now.
At least do it for a while
so that you can feel how you need to feel
without letting the toxic nature of social media
get in the way, 'cause we all know
how bad it can be if we let it,
which rolls into my next step
and something that I wish I had done in my own life.
Talk to mutual friends about the breakup
and figure out how you're gonna deal with get togethers.
And this tip does not mean
that we should gossip about what happened
or get other people involved with the breakup.
It's more like a quick talk to let them know
that you had a falling out
and then figure out a way to manage times
when you'll have to see each other.
And in my opinion, it's best to just be cordial.
When you get to the party or whatever,
if they're already there, go right up to them and say hi,
and that you hope they're well.
Then go about the party
and talk to who you really wanna talk to.
We don't have to give them any more attention
or spend any more time trying to talk to them,
just be kind, acknowledge them quickly.
It takes the stress and edge off right away.
But that's just from my own experience,
you do whatever you think is best for you.
And my next tip is to lean into the other relationships
that we still have.
Just because one has ended doesn't mean
that there's anything wrong with our other friendships,
and we will need them now more than ever.
So reach out, make plans, and connect with them
so that you can vent about all you're going through.
Hopefully you have some other friends
that aren't close to the one you just broke up with
so that you can feel safe sharing how you're feeling
without the worry that they're gonna
go back and gossip about it.
But I just also wanna mention that true friendships
shouldn't have that worry attached to them ever,
but people are people and I just wanted to point that out.
But it's important that we reach out
when we're going through a tough time,
even if all we wanna do is isolate.
And I've been talking about this when it comes to COVID-19
and our stress response, but it also applies here.
Social connection is the antidote to our stress response.
If we feel stressed out, easily upset or down,
we need to talk to other people about it.
So text that other friend or set up the Zoom happy hour
with your old work friends.
Do whatever you have to do to stay connected
as you process from this loss and work towards healing.
And finally, learn from the breakup.
I know it can feel like we're always being told this,
but an ending of any relationship teaches us something.
It could show us some unhealthy patterns
that we have in our relationships.
Like maybe we don't have the best boundaries,
or possibly we keep having the same issues with people.
Like everyone seems to depend on us for everything.
And at first it's great, but it slowly overwhelms us.
When one ends, we can usually more clearly see
what went wrong, and that can help us prepare
for future relationships so that we don't
keep making the same mistakes.
And we also have to consider our role in the fallout.
What did we do that led to the relationship breaking down?
Were there upsets that we had
that we didn't clearly communicate?
Or did we expect things from them
without telling them directly?
Consider what went wrong, what we did to allow it to happen,
or possibly to cause it, and know that it's okay
to take time figuring this all out.
Sometimes we can struggle to be honest
about what caused the breakup when we're still angry.
So we may have to wait
until we're able to see our role in it.
It's okay if it takes us a while,
but make sure you set aside some time to do this,
because if we don't, we can just end up
in another unhealthy relationship
that will have the same issues,
and we know how well that turns out.
It ends in a breakup.
Any kind of breakup is going to be hard,
and just like everything that's difficult and painful,
it can take us a while to heal.
So be patient with yourself,
take your time with these steps,
and know that by giving ourselves
an opportunity to reflect on an ended relationship,
we prepare ourselves for better ones to come.
And as always, feel free to leave any other tips
you've found helpful in those comments down below.
And I will see you next time, bye.
(gentle music)