This week, Lily welcomes female friendship coach and educator Danielle Bayard Jackson to the show!  As the founder of Friend Forward, Danielle is dedicated to empowering women with practical strategies for building and maintaining meaningful platonic connections.

Lily and Danielle explore pressing topics such as common barriers hindering sustainable female friendships, establishing healthy expectations for adult friendships, and navigating inevitable conflicts with grace.  The episode also addresses the challenges of making new friends, recognizing when it’s time to end a friendship and the crucial role of time in cultivating lasting connections.  Don’t miss this episode as Lily and Danielle dive deep into the complexities and joys of female friendships.

Episode Topics and Hot-takes:

• The most common barriers to building and sustaining friendships  

• Healthy expectations of what a friendship should be as an adult

• Healthy conflict is inevitable in all relationships. Danielle explains how to navigate conflict in friendships.

• Friendship breakups: How to know when it’s time to end a friendship 

• “One of the key ingredients to friend-making is time.” 

Links:

Register HERE for the upcoming live training- Dec 7th, “How to thrive during the holidays as a single badass”

Join Danielle’s “Group Chat” Find out more at: https://www.betterfemalefriendships.com/group-chat

Danielle’s website

Danielle on Instagram: @friendforward @daniellebayardjackson

Danielle on TikTok: @thefriendshipexpert

Show transcript:

[00:00:00] Lily: Hey, I’m Lily Womble, former top matchmaker and founder of Date Brazen. After setting up hundreds, I realized that with coaching, women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach, I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self trust filled love lives, and now, I’m here to support you.

[00:00:23] Get ready, because I’m about to show you the exact steps you need to attract a soul quenching partnership. And feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the date brazen podcast. Hello, gorgeous friends. Welcome to another episode of the date brazen podcast today. I have somebody on the pod who I have been wanting on the pod for months and months and months.

[00:00:43] I first found her on Tik TOK and then her content just really spoke to me. I know it’ll speak to you too. I. I’m so excited to have her. Danielle Bayard Jackson is a female friendship coach and educator who speaks nationally about the science of women’s [00:01:00] platonic connections. Her coaching business, Friend Forward, is dedicated to teaching women how to create and maintain better female friendships, and her expertise has been featured in the New York Times, NBC News, Psychology Today, Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Oprah Magazine, O Magazine, and various talk shows and other media outlets.

[00:01:17] Basically like. Let’s the person to go to about female friendships. She is a former high school teacher. And now Danielle uses her teaching skills as an educator to coach women through common, uh, common friendship conflicts. And she’s a member of the American psychological association. No big deal. Very big deal.

[00:01:36] And uses research to create practical, tangible strategies to help women create more in depth platonic relationships. She speaks for companies like TikTok, NBA, NFL, Etsy, like goes and like talks to them and teaches them how to do friendship better and is such a big deal. I’m so excited she’s here as you maybe can tell from my voice.

[00:01:56] She’s the friendship expert, a resident friendship [00:02:00] expert for Bumble. Okay, we can get into that. And she shares her insights weekly on the friend forward podcast and has several viral videos on Tik Tok, has recently signed a book deal and has written a glorious book to bring her practical research based strategies to the masses in May, 2024.

[00:02:18] This book is titled fighting for our friendships. Danielle. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting. And I know my listeners are so. Excited for this conversation. Friendships come up. All the time in our sessions in their dating lives and talking about dating and, you know, it’s just, it’s all connected.

[00:02:40] So I’m so glad that you’re

[00:02:41] Danielle: here. Yeah, I’m, I’m happy to lend my voice to this conversation because I think as much as we do like to, to feel like we’re compartmentalizing the different things going on in our lives or there’s so much overlap. So one affects the other. And so I’m glad to talk through

[00:02:55] Lily: it.

[00:02:55] Yeah. Tell me about what led you to dive into female friendships [00:03:00] in this, in. This moment of your career, like what made you you’re a teacher, high school teacher. And then how did you get from high school teacher to right here right now, talking for Tiktok, talking to Tiktok and talking to NBC and NFL, like, and writing a book, like, how did you get here?

[00:03:16] I just want to know that first. Yeah. So I always

[00:03:18] Danielle: joke that, you know, becoming a friendship coach. Was never my vision board when I was 10, you know, wasn’t a thing. Right. But, you know, the short story is I was a high school teacher for 6 years, worked my way up to, you know, the department chair and it was mostly the girls in my class.

[00:03:33] I had 17 and 18 year old was most of the girls were coming to me after class after school to talk about friendship stuff. And I had a front row seat to seeing how issues of connection and belonging were directly impacting their performance, their focus, their confidence, depending on if they were in the outs.

[00:03:51] With other girls in the class or whether they were in, so I got to see, you know, and I have the, the, the eraser marks for my seating chart to prove, you know, and they’re like, [00:04:00] okay, I can’t sit next to her today. You know, so we had to like, navigate that together. So, after I left the world of education, I got into public relations and I’m working with like, these high achieving charismatic women.

[00:04:11] And it doesn’t take long before I realized, oh, they have friendship issues too. We might keep it more private. Right, because we’re boss babe, and I’m not trying to have time for that, but whether it’s a lack of friendships, whether it’s a lack of depth and friendships, because you’ve got lots of people on the roster, but they don’t know the real you.

[00:04:28] Right because we perform we want to look good and so that’s when I was like, okay, at every stage of womanhood, we’re trying to figure out how do I relate to other women with stuff I’ve got going on in my past? How do I be a good friend? How do I know which friends to keep? I mean, whether they were 17 or 45.

[00:04:46] We’re asking the same questions and that’s what I decided to get certified to coach and to leverage my background as an educator to study what the research has to say about women’s conflict, communication and [00:05:00] cooperation. What

[00:05:01] Lily: are you seeing? Were you seeing as the major? The barrier. I know there are so many barriers to friendship or building friendships.

[00:05:10] But what do you see is like the most common barrier to women having and sustaining fulfilling friendship? I think it would be a

[00:05:17] Danielle: combination of fear, rejection, the unspoken rules. That we have girl codes and skewed expectations. So I think a mix of all those things, I find those coming up thematically in conversation.

[00:05:31] I’m having with other women.

[00:05:33] Lily: I have so much to ask and I’m paralyzed because I’m like, Oh, my God, where do I start? Where do I go? Because there’s so much here that selfishly I. Want to talk about because it just it impacts everyone no matter their romantic relationship status, no matter their age, you know, no matter like where they live.

[00:05:53] This is just so universal. And I know your book is going to be a bestseller for that reason, because we need it. Your lips to [00:06:00] God’s ears, sweetie. Hey, we need to, we will be promoting books are, can we just say books are weird in terms of writing one and then like putting it out there and. Anyway, we could have a whole podcast episode about that.

[00:06:14] I’m with you. Books are a

[00:06:15] Danielle: whole thing, but I am happy for an opportunity to kind of try to consolidate this information to, to help get to help get us thinking and just like a couple more degrees, like more confident and equipped to engage in a healthy way

[00:06:29] Lily: with other women. So I’m curious about what we can expect, what like is a healthy expectation as an adult Person adult woman, um, there are so many people listening to this podcast to our women, non binary folks, some men who are along for the ride.

[00:06:47] So I’m curious about what we can expect because I think for me, just like grounding in the eye. I, in the past, have navigated the fear of rejection and not saying what I really want because [00:07:00] of fear of being rejected. My old stories of you’re too much, Lily, you know, all come up around friendship and what I ask for, what I expect, how I perform in the friendships.

[00:07:11] That I have to maybe barter vulnerability for belonging. Like all of those things, I see them in my friendships. And I’m just wondering, I sometimes have the tendency, this is just me being bearing all, but I have a tendency to swing to the opposite end of like, just expecting them to expecting myself to be perfect within them or expecting perfection within the close friendships that I do have.

[00:07:32] So what can we healthfully expect? As adult people in our friendship lives, like, what is an expectation? Does that question make sense? Yeah, it makes

[00:07:44] Danielle: total sense. I would say on the most fundamental level, if we’re talking about, okay, what’s a what’s a healthy friendship? What’s reasonable for me to expect?

[00:07:53] How am I supposed to show up here? I think to expect. Mutual [00:08:00] engagement, reciprocity, mutual affection for 1 another and a healthy balance between me wanting what’s best for you and wanting what’s best for me. I think that’s kind of like, the ultimate blend. If we’re talking about, like, the, the highest level of friendship, not an acquaintance.

[00:08:16] You’re really cool with, but, you know, those really top tier friendships. It’s reasonable to expect that we have a, this is a safe space. For me to show up vulnerably and by vulnerably, I mean, you know, if I drop my defense mechanisms and I’m showing up authentically, what does that look like? Is that okay here?

[00:08:32] Is this person showing me that it’s enough for it’s safe for me to do that to make mistakes to speak honestly, to take a position that doesn’t mirror her own, you know? So am I safe here? Is there reciprocity? Are we communicative? And do I feel like I’m being my best healthiest self when I’m in this

[00:08:49] Lily: dynamic?

[00:08:50] How do you navigate? Okay. That within the realm of like conflict that comes from just like living life in the [00:09:00] world and being different people, how do you navigate mutuality in conflict? Or like, how would you because, for example, personally, I know that there are so many people who listen who maybe identify as an anxious attacher who have, have had experiences that lend themselves to creating more anxiety in their life.

[00:09:17] So sometimes when I’m in friendship, when things aren’t going well, I’m not doing well in my life, like my relationships, and that’s something I’m working on in therapy and getting support through both. And I think it will be helpful to ground in an I statement rather than doing a we in this episode. So when in conflict, especially for those who are anxious, who struggle with anxiety.

[00:09:38] How can we navigate that wholeheartedly? And navigate these friendships that mean so much to us when maybe we’re in conflict with one another.

[00:09:46] Danielle: I love that you’re sitting here for a second because this is my GM talking about conflict because you know, especially when it comes to friendship, we talk about like ideas for brunch and red flags, like, okay, conflict.

[00:09:56] Let’s talk about that. Um, healthy conflict is [00:10:00] inevitable. If you’re trying to figure out how do I do conflict better? How do I manage? These relational tensions better the 1st is we need to get on the same page about what conflict it is. Right? Um, and and and take a look at our attitude toward it before we can talk about how do I start moving my feet?

[00:10:16] Where’s our mind at? Healthy conflict is inevitable. If you are bringing to the table, your personal unique set of goals, desires, needs sensitivities. Don’t you think at some point, there might be competing interests between your goals needs boundaries. And this person’s unique goals boundaries. Okay. So I know a lot of times when we think of conflict, it tends to conjure up the image of, you know, in real housewives, dysfunctional yelling, and it doesn’t have to be all that healthy conflict means this inevitable moment where our goals needs we’re clashing right now.

[00:10:51] And that’s going to happen to different people. I’m most concerned about what happens next. So, if I know those tensions are going to happen, Okay. What do I tend to do [00:11:00] when they arise? Do I start to internalize it? Oh my gosh. I keep dropping the ball. She’s mad at me. This is my fault Do I get into you know what i’m cutting her off?

[00:11:09] I don’t need this drama I don’t need it to be all of this because that’s a problem too And I like to tell people that’s not a flex that attitude Oh people know they have one time with me and i’m letting them go. That’s not a flex You’re showing me you’re uncomfortable attention. You’re showing me that there’s a lack of of conflict resolution skills that you’re equipped with.

[00:11:28] That’s what you’re telling me. Right? So, if there’s research that suggests that relationships are closer after you come on the other side of healthy conflict, it’s going to be really uncomfortable during that. And you’re trying to figure out their needs and you might feel embarrassed because you cross 1 of their boundaries and they’re letting, you know, and now you feel like a little self conscious.

[00:11:47] All that’s normal. Yeah. But can we get to the other side and I think that’s the 1st thing is, if I can recognize that this is healthy conflict, meaning an opportunity to meet a need, or to get some shared understanding. It’s an [00:12:00] opportunity that I welcome that because I know that from this moment, we’re going to get data that we need to know how to love 1 another better.

[00:12:09] That’s what healthy conflict that’s its function. But if we see it as, especially in friendships, we tend to see conflict as evidence of a lack of compatibility, but in every other context, it’s like, we anticipate it. We’ve got books to help us, you know, romantically. Okay. We know we’re going to fight, but how do we talk through it?

[00:12:27] We’re fighting with our parents, or we know we’re going to have tensions with coworkers, but there’s something about friendship where we feel like if tension comes up, we automatically go toward. Oh, okay. I guess she wasn’t a real friend. Or Oh, okay, I guess we weren’t real friends. If we can’t get past this, I guess we weren’t as close as I thought.

[00:12:43] So let’s normalize having tension with friends and

[00:12:46] Lily: working through it. How do you know when I love that? And it’s so courageous and vulnerable. And then it just again, wow, uncomfortable. I feel when we’re talking about this, I feel it in my body. [00:13:00] It’s like the tension is, is difficult. And I think this is why people avoid.

[00:13:06] Dating the discomfort that comes up around confronting these things and conversations, uh, within yourself, even, and then with another person, why people avoid potentially like having rumbles to use a Brene Brown term in a friendship of like getting in the, getting in the, like, how are, how are we doing conversation?

[00:13:26] I had a situation. When I first moved to New York, I had built a new group of friends. I moved from, um, Alabama, where I’m from, to San Francisco for my first job, my first set of career experiences in the nonprofit space, and then I, I moved to New York to pursue musical theater like eight years ago. And then I became a matchmaker and then I started date brazen.

[00:13:47] So that’s like little, like mini my trajectory. Why this is relevant is that at the time, when I first moved to New York, I had this new set of friendships from the musical theater world. And I felt like the luckiest person ever that I was [00:14:00] in this artsy city with these amazing friends who were so talented and so amazing.

[00:14:05] And I was about 23, 24, maybe around that time. And I had a friend while my parents were getting a divorce as an adult, and I didn’t have very many friendships. I had maybe like one or two friends, and I was thinking that these friends were like very close people. And so I was desiring this closeness desiring, and I bring this up because I do think this example will be universal.

[00:14:32] I. Was going through so much of my life, I needed a lot of friendship support, and I noticed that my one or two friends were not able to give that support to me and then conflict arose. And I was like, I feel like, wow, this really sucks. I don’t have the friendship support that I thought I did. Me and this one friend went to dinner and she very courageously didn’t yell.

[00:14:54] And I’m curious what you would think about this. Just said, yeah. I don’t think I can meet your friendship needs. [00:15:00] I see what you want. I see your expectations. I hear your desires and I’m not that person for you. It was so heartbreaking. Like I could cry thinking about it now. And I’m glad that she was honest.

[00:15:15] With her needs and wants, but it did lead to like a friendship. It was a, like, am I going to accept her for how she can show up? How can she, how she can show up or am I going to break up? And I think that, you know, you just did recently in the last couple of months did episodes on, um, friendship breakups, or you do, you talk about that regularly.

[00:15:35] I’m curious, when do you recommend people say, yep, this is human conflict. We’re navigating this. We’re going to get through this. And when do you say. Yeah, maybe time to bless and release or part ways as friends.

[00:15:48] Danielle: Yeah, that’s a great question. And also, I, I, I’m sorry that happened to you because I can imagine how awkward it feels.

[00:15:55] It’s embarrassing. You feel like, oh my gosh, I’ve been investing and this person is telling me that [00:16:00] it’s not a worthy investment to them to continue. What does that mean for me? And, and so. Cool. That’s a lot. That’s really, really hard. And I’m sorry you went through that, but I also am glad to hear you say, like, but I guess I’m, I’m glad that, you know, she could bring it to me.

[00:16:14] And also I, I, hopefully there’s some space for moving. I’m sure it’s still tender. You know, I can tell talking to you. It’s still tender, you know,

[00:16:20] Lily: but yeah. It was eight years ago. It feels like yesterday, but it was eight years ago. That checks out.

[00:16:25] Danielle: That checks out. The wounds are fresh, right? It’s so hard having that conversation, but I am glad for you that while there were like really complicated emotions attached, it freed you up to lean into spaces where people are able and willing to meet those needs.

[00:16:45] And they’re like, yeah, Hey, I’m in, I can deliver what you’re looking for so that there’s more fruit. For you from the relationship, you know, who wants to be in a friendship where a person feels burdened by things that feel like very [00:17:00] natural needs to me. So painful, but I’m glad to give you space to lean into, or to at least make yourself available for those friendships.

[00:17:07] I feel a little more reciprocal. But yeah, that’s really hard. If a person is deciding, like, okay, do I keep. Investing in us do we keep working through or is it time to just, like, throw our hands up a couple of things can can help make the difference. 1 is I know this sounds really like, at the risk of sounding really pedestrian starting basic with, like, a does the good outweigh the bad.

[00:17:28] So just starting there. Because, like, maybe we have friction, but when I step away and I look at things, like, for more of an aerial view, I’m like, you know what, this is a complicated season. I’m going to trust that. We’re just this is just really hard right now. But at the end of the day, I derive a lot of joy from this relationship.

[00:17:45] I feel like I’m growing here and I feel like I’m intellectually stimulated and I have support, you know, so so what does that look like? The 2nd thing is, what does your, how does your energy feel? And I don’t just mean, I know that’s kind of elusive when people like the energy, but I mean, in terms of [00:18:00] like, effort that you feel like you’re, you’re giving, does it feel worth it to you?

[00:18:05] The investment, because we often talk about friendships as like, these fantasies, like, these glorious things that just make your life better. But like, if you’re engaging in any relationship, while it does research tells us, like, act as a buffer to stress. Yeah. To have a strong social support relationship will also be a source of stress.

[00:18:26] So, to some extent, having this other person in my world with their tendencies and habits and stuff is going to be annoying and stressful and inconvenient and burdensome sometimes. I have to ask myself, does the energy I’m exerting and pouring into it, does it kind of outweigh like those benefits? And you have to kind of ask yourself that, um, if I want to keep this going, if I have the resources to keep this going and I, I think those are some things to consider.

[00:18:53] Do I have the energy? Do I feel like it’s worth it? Does the good outweigh the bad? And do I believe that this season of it feeling [00:19:00] like laborious in our friendship? Do I believe it’s a season or do I believe that this is the way the friendship is? Um, and so I think kind of maybe asking ourselves some of those questions will help us to arrive at a conclusion up.

[00:19:11] Okay. I think. I think we’re past our expiration date here, and

[00:19:15] Lily: I think the friendship has served its purpose. I’m curious about the idea of building new friendships. So many of my clients are moving to new places. Trying to build strong social circles and are struggling. I’m curious about why is so, why it’s so difficult to make new friendships and how can people get started with that?

[00:19:33] Danielle: Oh, so, you know, a, a, a go to thing I often hear people say is like, it was so easier, you know, so much easier in school cause we were in school and like, yeah, people tend to start by pointing to that. And that is true 1 of the key ingredients of friend making is time and we were in a place saturated with our peer who are spending 8 hours a day together.

[00:19:52] So, to some extent, we had that ingredient that that that ingredient of time baked in to what we’re doing now as [00:20:00] adults. We’ve got differing work schedules. We have competing priorities. If I have kids, I have certain priorities. And if you’re really career focused, you’re focused on that. Some people are worried about establishing family ties.

[00:20:11] So we’ve got kind of like these competing priorities. Now I have to put an extra work to facilitate opportunities for us to come together because it’s not going to happen organically like it was when we had to sit next to each other in a classroom. So we have to facilitate all these opportunities to be together.

[00:20:26] Make friends, you know, there’s new research. Well, I guess about two years old and I found that it takes 34 hours to move someone from acquaintance. To a friend, and that’s consistent with other research at the University of Kansas that finds the same thing about 30 hours to move you from, like, kind of cool to, like, you’re a friend.

[00:20:43] So, our 1st question a lot of times as adults is like, oh, my where am I coming up with these extra hours? Right? So we have to be very thoughtful and intentional in a space where we normally use language. Like, it should just happen naturally. Like, it should just be easy to make friends. So there’s kind of, like, that mental, like, I guess, cognitive [00:21:00] dissonance of it should be easy.

[00:21:01] Like, it should just be natural. And then the barriers we’re experiencing in real life when we’re trying to develop platonic relationships. So, just time, I think is 1 barrier. I think another is fear of rejection, whether I was working with my teenage students or grown women who wants to put themselves out there and have it confirmed that.

[00:21:20] You’re not desirable. You’re not interesting. You’re not funny. You know, so that we don’t want to take that risk. So a lot of us are kind of, we retreat into ourselves. Another thing too, that I see is I think that as adults, we feel really confident that we know ourselves, we know our type, we know our people.

[00:21:36] And so I think sometimes that keeps us stuck because we stop having a spirit of curiosity experimentation. You know, maybe this person can’t be my best friend, but she can be my gym buddy and that’s enough. You know? So I think sometimes we’re rigid. As adults, and that makes things difficult as well. And the last thing I’ll say here about why it’s often difficult is I do want to give credit to, um, just like culturally the shifts that have [00:22:00] happened that have made it very difficult.

[00:22:01] So, just even like sociologically, culturally, environmentally, we have fewer walkable spaces in neighborhoods. People are more mobile with the increase of remote work, which means my friends can pick up and move and still keep their job. There’s no incentive to stay. So, when we look at, like, communities themselves, yeah, it does feel like I’m up against a lot to try to make these friendships materialize.

[00:22:21] We don’t really kind of have the infrastructure with the social infrastructure that we had before and then an increasing culture of individualism, you know, everything you want to do, you can do from home. Now I can watch movies or books, order groceries. So it’s almost like the lifestyle that we have.

[00:22:37] Keeps us home. So, when am I having these serendipitous moments of connecting with other people outside of my home? So, a couple of things come to play of why it might be difficult to make a new friend. But when it comes to starting to put yourself out there and you’re like, you know, I’m going to do this.

[00:22:54] How do I get it done? I’ll give you three things. I could give you lots more, but three. The first [00:23:00] I’ll say is be careful of using the phrase. Uh, make new friends and meet new people synonymously because the 2 aren’t necessarily the same make new friend is talking about, you know, the art of, of cultivating something meaningful with another person.

[00:23:15] And who says you have to start from scratch. A lot of us do have people that we’ve connected with at some point who we enjoy their company enough. We had some good times, but we just think of the times past, or we never entertain them at the potential friend. You don’t always have to start from scratch.

[00:23:30] Can you go back to people? You have some kind of history with. Commonality with and start there and being intentional about developing something with them. First of all, the second is welcoming routine into your life, which feels very unsexy, but especially for those of us who work from home, but there’s something called the mere exposure effect, which means just by a person being more familiar, we tend to prefer them just because I see your face all the time.

[00:23:55] So how do we create moments where I see this person every Friday [00:24:00] morning when I work from the coffee shop? Every Friday for 2 hours, or when I go on my afternoon walk, I’m saying hello, but how do I have routine that puts me out in the world allows me to socialize my interest and I can see the same faces.

[00:24:12] And then it makes it easier to be like, oh, hey, how are you doing? Because I see you all the time on my walk. I see all the time on my whatever. So, how can I create more consistency out in the world? And the last thing I’ll say is to be a connector be a connector. Stop waiting on other people to invite you other people to give you green light, other people to guarantee they like you before you put yourself out there and you invite people and you initiated a text.

[00:24:41] Hey, you were on my mind. It has to be an identity, not just a behavior. You tried on sometimes and these fleeting moments of competence. I am a connector. That’s who I am. I’m reaching out 1st, because that’s just that’s just what I do not. Well, I would reach out, but. Let me see what she says first. [00:25:00] And if she there’s a time for that, you’d be connected because it’s who you are and a natural byproduct of that attitude will be

[00:25:08] Lily: the emergence of new friendships.

[00:25:10] Brilliant. Danielle. I think that that’s just so brilliant. And it is so aligned with what I talk about with, like, making an empowered 1st move in a dating context that, like, the right relationships are co created. It is two people showing up. It does not have to be you passively receiving all of the leadership because of the fear that, you know, I’m unlovable.

[00:25:32] It’s going to be proven by them not wanting to hang out with me or whatever. Like, I think that this is such a powerful stance. I am curious about the devil’s avocado. As 30 Rock, Tracy Morgan and 30 Rock said, Devil’s Advocate, your podcast, Friend Forward, you had an episode recently, two episodes, one, what your couple, single people, what you want your coupled friends to know and coupled friends, what you want your single friends to know.

[00:25:57] Ooh,

[00:25:58] Danielle: what did you think about that? This is your [00:26:00] world.

[00:26:02] Lily: Well, I started with the coupled friend. I think that. I love that you’re even talking about this, right? Because I think that it is an unspoken conversation in so many friendships and not unspoken to me because I hear about it all the time, but unspoken between friends and friends.

[00:26:20] Um, and, and I hear among my clients who are friends. Yeah. You know, single this experience of, I feel like I’m always the one reaching out, making plans that my, my married friends, you know, default to plans with their partner or their kids. And, and so I feel like the left out. Person and it’s exhaust. You know, I’m just sort of embodying their voice right now.

[00:26:47] It’s it’s exhausting to be the the connector all the time to keep my friendships going and I feel left behind is this sort of like thing that I hear very [00:27:00] often. I’m curious what you would say

[00:27:02] Danielle: to that. Yeah, that’s tricky. I do hear that too from, from single clients is, you know, the friends I have are getting partnered and our friendship changed once they got a partner and where before I felt very confident and secure and the friendship.

[00:27:17] Now I feel second tier and I feel forgotten. And that’s tricky. That’s really tricky. Um, the first thing I tend to share or encourage is to say the quiet part out loud, because I knew that when I got married, Okay. I had friends who felt the same way, but I discovered it later, but to say the quiet part out loud, because a lot of times we assume, well, you know, I want to be respectful.

[00:27:39] So I’ll let them do their thing. Or I guess that’s how things are. Like, people change. So I’ll just. If I’m feeling like, okay, I know she’s boot up, but, you know, I’m going to start Friday dates and I’d like to, you know, have some chats every now and then. To say, so it doesn’t make you needy. It doesn’t make you clingy.

[00:27:57] If I am your friend, I want to know that you’re kind [00:28:00] of feeling, you know, lost out there in the wind and you’re missing me. Right? So we can do that in a way. That’s not necessarily accusatory, but it’s an invitation. Hey, I miss our hangouts girl. I know you’re Buddha, but. You know, I want to keep our, our Friday face times.

[00:28:14] Like, is that cool with you? You know, so that way I’m inviting her. I miss you. And that should be flattering to the average person. Right? I think it’s also helpful to ask if they’re down to do a friendship virtual where it’s like, it’s like this recurring time on the calendar where we don’t have to coordinate.

[00:28:30] Okay. Well, whose turn is it to reach out? And what time do you, are you free on Tuesday? Every Friday, we FaceTime for 30 minutes on my commute every 1st Tuesday. We go to trivia night at the restaurant, whatever, but it’s a way to show demonstrate tangibly your top of mind for me. I will commit to you. No matter what else is happening.

[00:28:48] We’re going to stay in touch and do this thing. And it’s 1 way to show, you know, I care about you and I prioritize you in my life, but to that single friend who’s feeling on the outs. It is normal for [00:29:00] partner people to kind of hole up for a while, and they’ve got other things are tending to, but I don’t think there’s any shame and being like, girl, I miss you.

[00:29:07] What’s going on? Um, while also maybe taking the opportunity to open it up to friends who have the availability and capacity to kind of meet you where you are. But I’m curious to know what you think about that. Because I know you hear that often. Yeah.

[00:29:22] Lily: Well, I think that number one is just, I think people need to be normalized.

[00:29:26] Like you, you’ve been saying this whole time, like it’s normal. It’s so normal. And it’s hard to, you know, I think that single folks in general, single women specifically. Are people who are socialized as women, like socially, it is a left behind an experience of feeling left behind, you know, like, like the, the, our rituals in society are so, at least Western society are so baked around marriage, kids, right?

[00:29:55] So there’s very few opportunities for self celebration outside of those [00:30:00] opportunities, which is like a force that is. you know, single folks feel even more left behind. I just think that it’s, it’s hard. And I think acknowledging that our society is, is sort of putting romantic relationship as the gold standard of human existence.

[00:30:13] It’s like an important thing to name in this conversation. Um, both and I do think that the people, I love the phrase, like people want to know how to love you better when they’re in your life, you know? And so I do think that that like, Self advocacy, though it can be tiring, and a lot of my clients have the story of like, but if I was partnered, I wouldn’t have to do so much heavy self advocacy.

[00:30:36] Being single is another ding again. It’s another heaviness that I have to be the one to say, I’m feeling this way, or I feel lonely, or I feel like, right, that that’s, that’s also hard. I think self compassion. Is what I coach with like first is like, how can you be compassionate towards that version of yourself and not push it away and say, Oh, I shouldn’t be feeling that way or I shouldn’t be feeling jealous or I should.

[00:30:59] It’s a [00:31:00] feeling. That’s my first first take. And then in terms of single folks and their dating lives and friendships specifically, I love helping people. engage their coupled friends more effectively in their love lives. And I love the idea of like, you know, how like people who are getting married make a beautiful card or a box and say, will you be my bridesmaid?

[00:31:21] Like, I love how can we ritualize single friends, asking their coupled friends for help in their Love lives in a very similar way of like, how can I ritualize asking you to be my co conspirator in my dating life? And how can I be direct with what that looks like? And what, what I need and what I want. And like, how can we co create a fun collaboration?

[00:31:42] And I’ve had clients like then deepen their friendships because Like you guys. They’re coupled friends know how to ask about their dating lives more effectively. So that’s my take. And all of this is like, there are creative solutions and you don’t have to continue single people listening. You don’t have to continue silently [00:32:00] suffering.

[00:32:00] Yeah. Yeah. In these friendships where you don’t feel As supported as you used to, like, it’s, I think exactly what you’re saying. It’s important to, to say this quiet thing, like you said. Yeah, and

[00:32:10] Danielle: I love those creative solutions. That’s really good. That is really good. And I, and I think some of it is like, in addition to like the tangibles of the creative thing is, you know, I know, and I’ve been guilty of it too.

[00:32:20] I think something to add to that is it’s just like that mindset. It’s so easy to slip into like. I guess they don’t care about me as much. I guess I was just a placeholder. I guess our friendship, you know, is kind of over now. It’s never going to be like it was before. That stuff doesn’t help either. You know, so instead, it’s just like, okay, our friendship looked a certain way when we were both single gals in the town and.

[00:32:44] I’m going to your point about compassion. I’m going to give us a little bit of grace to figure out. Okay. How can we be friends under these conditions? What’s season 3 of our friendship going to look like, you know, and so how do I consistently engage with, like, the problem solving of okay, how are we going to do this [00:33:00] now that you.

[00:33:00] You got somebody, how are we going to do this? How do I force myself to stay curious instead of making assumptions about it’s never going to be like it was before. I guess this is how it is now. I guess, you know, she’s got somebody new because those things kind of immobilize us from engaging in the creative, you know, solutions of, you know, reengaging our friend.

[00:33:21] Um, but I, I love those solutions. And I think in addition to that, keeping that mindset of. Okay, our friendship is so strong. What do we do? What can we do to keep the energy to keep each other top of mind? But it’s

[00:33:33] Lily: hard. It’s hard. And I do think underneath all of this is I hear what you’re talking about is creating a very grounded sense of self, you know, like what and and I can.

[00:33:46] Very clearly see that undercurrent because there have been many times in my own journey where I have not had a strong sense of self or a strong sense of self confidence and that, you know, my friendships did feel like the barometer of my worthiness, [00:34:00] right? And similarly, people in romantic relationships looking for I’ve done that to looking to a romantic relationship to be a barometer of whether or not I was worthy of love and connection and partnership.

[00:34:12] So I think that for those who are struggling because it. Even when thinking like, stay curious, try not to, you know, acknowledge your brain going to the extreme, acknowledge your brain going to the worst case scenario and like, you know, be curious that requires a very strong grounded sense of self and self worth.

[00:34:31] So I’m curious if you have, I mean, this is such a. Deeper thing and probably a lot more nuanced than we can get into in a few minutes on a podcast, both. And what would you say to folks struggling with that sense of self worth to depersonalize some of these changes that might be happening in friendships?

[00:34:50] Danielle: Oh, that’s such a great question. Okay. I’m no psychologist, but 1 exercise that we do. As we think about, you know, our anchors, like what are the [00:35:00] things that if somebody told you, you’re not this, or you’re not that it would be laughable to you because you’re like, okay, of all the things I know I’m this, like, I know what are your anchors?

[00:35:10] Like no one can contest three to four of them. Is it, you know, I know that I am a generous person. I know that confidently, you know, I know I’m an interesting person cause I’m well read. Okay. And I’m out here in the world. I know I got interesting things to say. What are the things, you know, to be true about who you are and what you have to offer?

[00:35:30] And what’s so interesting to your point is it’s so, uh, very telling to me when a lot of things, women share those, those anchors are always contingent on somebody else. Right. I know I can be the listener and gift to them. I know that they need something. I’ll show like their whole list is. I know I can do for you if you just let me.

[00:35:49] And it’s like outside of that, you as a person have to offer the world because we need to get back in touch with that. Um, but you know, it’s, it’s, it’s so tricky though. Cause I got to tell you, [00:36:00] I know we can say, you know, you’ve got to have a strong sense of self. In order to be a part of healthy relationships, and that is true because it takes 2 confident, self assured, you know, people, but we also get a lot of our identity from the friendships we form.

[00:36:16] So, it’s kind of this chicken or the egg thing because a lot of how I feel about myself is how I am affirmed. My people, my community, how supported I am, how they reflect back to me, how I want to be seen. So it is kind of that balance of I know who I am. I’m grounded in and who I am and what I have to offer.

[00:36:35] And then also being in healthy friendships that kind of reflect back to me how I want to be seen, or they reflect to me what I can be. But I know it’s really tough because, you know, yes, it requires us to be healthy and in touch and confident and self aware to engage in healthy

[00:36:53] Lily: partnerships and

[00:36:54] Danielle: friendships, but also a lot of our healing and identity development [00:37:00] comes from.

[00:37:00] Other people, and there’s research that shows that our identity is developed through how do other people see me? How do, you know, how did they define me? How did they affirm me? So it is kind of like this nice blend. So I, you know, of course, encourage, how can I start by saying, okay, my identity? What are the things that make me feel like me?

[00:37:19] Who am I? Where does that come from? Voices from my parents or what other people who do I believe myself to be? What do I believe I have to offer that people can’t take away from me and hopefully that draws me closer to the friendships where I feel affirmed in a healthy way. And I’ll end with this.

[00:37:36] There’s this concept known as self verification theory, and I learned this from Dr Marissa Franco, who wrote the book platonic. She’s amazing. And the idea is that you tend to go toward people who affirm the way you see

[00:37:50] Lily: yourself. So

[00:37:52] Danielle: that goes both ways. If I see myself as. A generous, you know, high achieving, whatever [00:38:00] kind of friends, right?

[00:38:01] I’m looking for people who reflect it back to me. That’s kind of what I grow. I go toward. It’s also true the other way. If I believe I’m unworthy and I’m not very intelligent, I’m not very interesting. I’m just grateful to be here and that I probably will gravitate toward people who affirm that. And that’s what we often see.

[00:38:15] And I wonder if you see this in romantic relationships, you know, the woman who goes toward the guy who is treating her well, and she can’t bring herself to accept. Positive treatment because it’s like, I don’t feel like I’m deserving. I feel like you don’t get who I am. Right? So, at some point, I have to be assured of who I am and and see myself positively so that it really, so I feel comfortable receiving healthy love from healthy friends.

[00:38:40] Lily: Yeah, absolutely. I think that that is definitely, definitely key of building an identity of someone who is enough and who is worthy of connection and belonging, like literally period. And. I think that that’s [00:39:00] like such a both and conversation. And I think that what I’m hearing from you and what I’m reflecting on myself is like the over indexing on individual individualization, whatever the word like on the individual work of build your own identity.

[00:39:15] You need to create your self concept versus what you’re saying is like. The creation of an identity has been a co creation from childhood to now and have been a co creation with our relationships. And so I think it’s like navigating that both hand of what can I do? What am I in control of on how, you know, practicing some new thoughts that feel useful and true, maybe trying to, you know, confront your self talk with some self compassion and, and starting to gently create a new self concept towards I am worthy.

[00:39:47] I am enough. Yeah. And examining the relationships in your life and how they might be reflecting. A self concept that may not belong. You may not want anymore.

[00:39:56] Danielle: That’s so good. And 100%. Yeah. And there’s, I mean, there’s [00:40:00] lots of different little, not little, but there’s lots of different research studies kind of examining that same concept.

[00:40:05] There’s even something known as, you know, the acceptance prophecy that people who tend to anticipate acceptance typically get it. And the ones who think they’re about to be rejected, they typically are, you know, so, you know, it’s, it’s tricky. I always kind of hesitate if I’m being honest on, on sharing some of that.

[00:40:20] Cause I’m like, I definitely don’t want I feel like, you know, a victim planning thing of like, well, you need to get yourself together and people will treat you right. You know, so I’m certainly not saying that, but I do believe that if you believe you’re going to be accepted because you have great things to offer this world, there’s, it changes the way you engage.

[00:40:38] You are entering the party with your head up making eye contact. Feeling comfortable to jump in, in a conversation instead of engaging in avoidant behaviors. Like I’m scrolling on my phone, I’m looking away and now people see me and they’re like, oh yeah, she was kind of cold. Yeah. She didn’t talk to anybody.

[00:40:56] I’m not reaching out to her. She didn’t even look like she wanted to be there. I didn’t have an [00:41:00] attitude. I was just not confident, you know? So it’s just like, how do my beliefs about myself? Directly impact the way I engage with the world. And I think that might be a nice starting point.

[00:41:11] Lily: Yes. And I think, and, and, and I too love to make room for the nuance in that, because I do think that the tick tock of the world and, and the sort of like blanket statements and blanket advice.

[00:41:24] And, you know, if you want it to be wood sort of period, never any nuance to anything in here. Yes, can be. Unhelpful. Now, I also think that there’s this like manifestation, you know, like, gotta have positive thoughts to attract positive things. And, you know, I have clients even saying to me, I haven’t retracted love yet.

[00:41:45] It must be because I’m just deeply resistant at a level that I don’t understand. I’m just deeply resistant. And that’s why, and I’m like, how about we make room for some humanity? And some self doubt in the process, because that’s human, how about we make room for your humanity [00:42:00] and work towards a self concept that just feels better for you, you know, and, and then bonus is cool.

[00:42:08] Things can come from you showing up in the world differently. I also you’re speaking my language because this is exactly why I, it. Want all of my clients and people in my world to brag on themselves. Like, I think bragging is breath to the right relationships and the right connections, not in a cocky finance bro kind of way, like I’m better than you, but in a way of like, what, here’s what I’m proud of.

[00:42:32] What are you proud of? Like, you know, I, uh, like before a date, I have my clients write out 20 reasons why they love themselves. Like that, I think of those as brags and like just practicing that allows it to be easier for you to like love on yourself a little bit more, a little bit at a time. No, that’s so

[00:42:51] Danielle: good.

[00:42:52] That’s so good. And so it’s interesting because, you know, my brain goes to the context of like women’s friendships and it’s so interesting how the dynamics [00:43:00] are tricky because one of the unspoken rules and tell me if you’ve seen this too, but, you know, one of the unspoken rules is like, you know, women tend to really value, um, like egalitarianism, like we’re all the same.

[00:43:13] Hmm. We’re all equal. So a lot of women feel scared to lean into their shine because I don’t want to be a target. I don’t want women thinking that I think I’m better. So I’m just going to downplay it. You compliment my dress. I’m going to tell you how old it is. I’m going to tell you how cheap it was. You tell me like my hair.

[00:43:30] I’m going to say, Oh my gosh, I barely washed it today because I don’t want to be a target. But what’s so interesting is, you know, because shining does feel vulnerable even to shine feels vulnerable because I feel like I’m going to risk rejection If I shine, but I love that exercise of, okay, write down everything you think is awesome before you engage.

[00:43:50] And even in a platonic sense, because we downplay so that I, I won’t be misunderstood. You know, even if I think I’m great in certain ways, am I, do I have the space to, [00:44:00] to share it? Because I don’t want to, because you use the word, you know, bringing breath to that relationship and a friendship. If you want to attract confident women who hype you up.

[00:44:10] I am not threatened by you shining. I love that for you, girl. Hello. And so I love that concept because I do see its applications in both

[00:44:17] Lily: contexts. Absolutely. And I, I think that for me. You know, practicing bragging before I ever and bragging is breath concepts, not bragging sucks the air out of the room.

[00:44:29] But, um, it did lead to me not having connections that I thought I did because I was look, Danielle, we’re getting us. I’m getting a second wind of this conversation. I could talk to you for another 50 minutes about this. I will just briefly say I was in a sorority college and I wanted to create a new ceremony that allowed women to celebrate.

[00:44:53] Yeah, Themselves and their accomplishments and their professional achievements in addition to celebrating when they got engaged. Mm-Hmm. , which is, you know, what was [00:45:00] happening all the time. And I was told Lily and I said, I know women in the South have trouble celebrating themselves. I have something I wanna celebrate and I know five other women that I wanna celebrate.

[00:45:11] They’ve got amazing things going on with their careers. And I was told. Lily, you were seen as self promoting, self aggrandizing. You were seen at, you need to stop it because marriage is so much more important than professional achievements. By the way, marriage is a sacrament in my religion. So you were, Oh, this all led to like me leaving the sorority in a fiery, you know, Oh my God.

[00:45:36] But my people pleasing kicked in. I started crying to the president of the sorority who was telling me that. So yes, bragging. And I’ve seen it crumble. Relationships, both. And you can’t say the wrong thing to the right person. It’s one of my favorite isms because like those relationships weren’t meant for me.

[00:45:53] I want to celebrate myself and I want to invite you to celebrate yourself. And if that doesn’t feel comfortable, then, you know, that’s [00:46:00] okay. Yeah. And, and that’s my take, but I’m curious. Do you have a, Oh my God, I could

[00:46:04] Danielle: totally take. See, that 100%, um, especially if 1 of the values and virtues of womanhood is to be modest and every sense of the word.

[00:46:15] Yep. You know, so if I feel like that is, um, a measure of my. Womanhood and femininity is kind of being modest, um, self sacrificing, uh, being in the background. Um, if I see that as, like, how a woman ought to be, then I could totally see how, you know, being challenged by, you know, with the activity, you know, write down positive things about yourself can even feel like, oof, uh, crunch, because I You know, as a woman, should we really, you know, that whole idea of like, lady, like, is it really like to like lead with all my greatness?

[00:46:48] You know? So I think for a lot of women, just these concept can be disruptive in a good way, but disruptive because it feels contradictory to what I’ve been told of what being a good woman is [00:47:00] like. Being a good friend and putting other people first and not talking about myself in front of others. That’s rude.

[00:47:06] So I, it does require, I guess, some unlearning a little bit because, you know, how many virtues virtues we have as a woman. And then if we feel like if we’re stepping away from them, what does that say can be tough,

[00:47:18] Lily: right? And then we’re in identity land. Yeah. Yeah. And then we’re in like, what’s your identity?

[00:47:24] What was it formed by? Like, I know that’s like, it’s the core thing. I don’t know. So Danielle, to end this episode, I want to ask about your book and I want to ask, what do you want to brag on? I just feel like that. I just want to like hold space for your celebration.

[00:47:40] Danielle: Okay. Well, the book,

[00:47:43] Lily: I’m

[00:47:43] Danielle: like, Oh my God, please.

[00:47:46] It’s not about me. Um, yeah, so that’s deeply ingrained man. So my book comes out in May, 2024 it’s titled fighting for our friendships. And the easiest way I can summarize it is it is my attempt to answer the [00:48:00] question. Why is it that women’s are so deep yet. So fragile because according to the research, They, we have lots of former friendships.

[00:48:09] Um, but what’s that about? Especially when the research says that our friendships are more intimate, you know, the men’s friendships that we’re comparing men and women, what’s going on there. So it’s my attempt to answer that question. And my hope is just that it’s one of many, you know, friendship books people have, um, on their shelf to help them better understand how to enter into healthy relationships with other platonically.

[00:48:31] I think if I had to brag on myself, I would brag. About my ability, I think, oh, I’m laughing. It feels like so weird to, oh my God, I’m falling apart. I would brag about my ability to facilitate. Open, thoughtful conversations around friendship where it’s not about me. I don’t give advice. I don’t tell you what me and my friends did this weekend.

[00:48:58] So we’ve established a norm [00:49:00] in our community of, you know, I’m here to facilitate guide questions, make you comfortable to share. And I really do think I do a pretty good job of creating that space for people to show up, admit hard things, admit messy things they’ve done. Let’s talk through it without vilifying other side, you know, either side, um, to figure out, okay, how can we take this lesson applied moving forward and keep creating strong, healthy bonds with other women.

[00:49:30] So I. I like that. I’ve been able to do that over the past five years, and I’m really grateful for women who have trusted me to come alongside them in their friendship journey.

[00:49:39] Lily: That’s beautiful. I love that. And I see just in the way that you communicate in this episode and in your podcast on your tech talk, it’s just so evident that you facilitate so beautifully and that that is such a superpower to bring these conversations up and guide people through them in a way that.

[00:49:58] in which they get a [00:50:00] transformation at the end. And, and that’s what I feel from you. So I celebrate that with you. Thank you.

[00:50:04] Danielle: And thank you for creating the space to like have that moment. That was, I got to go like reflect on that.

[00:50:12] Woo.

[00:50:14] Lily: Good. Well, I’m celebrating that we had this episode. I’ve been wanting to do it for so long and I’m so grateful for your time. I’m grateful that I have this podcast where I get to showcase and share brilliant. People like you and you, it’s just like, it is such a gift. And I hear from my audience every single week that they’re building better friendships, building better, you know, romantic relationships, building a better relationship with themselves because of it.

[00:50:41] So I’m just really grateful celebrating that and celebrating you. I can’t wait to pre order your book going after this right now. Where can people pre order your book? I mean,

[00:50:50] Danielle: you know, I know Amazon, but I know there’s other places where you can like support Indie as well. Um, so everything, all the information lives at

[00:50:56] Lily: betterfemalefriendships.

[00:50:58] com, betterfemalefriendships. com. You [00:51:00] also plugging have this thing called the group chat. Yeah.

[00:51:04] Danielle: Okay. You are. You’re a phenomenal hype. woman. Thank you so much for that. But yeah, so we had a group chat, just a lot of people like, you know, I do my tick tocks and then there were comments like, Oh my God, wait, what was your source for that?

[00:51:16] And what about this? And so people really like to geek out on the stuff that I’m like, well, if you really want to get to the nerdy nitty gritty, we can hang out in the group chat and that’s where I’ll share, you know, links to studies or we’ll talk about things more in depth. And we also have a book club.

[00:51:28] So, you know, for like the next four months, we’re reading these books and the authors are actually going to come to talk about their book and it’s a whole thing. And the books we read are about, you know, women’s friendships. So the group chat is where we get to deep dive a little more. And um, and that too lives at better female friendships.

[00:51:43] com.

[00:51:45] Lily: We’re going to put all the links in the show notes and in the description of this episode. Danielle, thank you so much for coming on. I’m grateful that we had this conversation and onward. I hope it, I hope, you know, this leads to more conversations and friends [00:52:00] being more honest with one another and, and honest with themselves about what they want.

[00:52:04] Thank you for

[00:52:04] Danielle: having me. And thank you for holding space to talk about friendship, you know, within the context of what you do. It’s so important. So I appreciate you for, for holding space for this and for allowing me to lend my voice to the

[00:52:15] Lily: conversation. A hundred percent. Well, y’all go check out Danielle and all of the links and I will talk to you next week.

[00:52:21] Bye.