Coffee Chats w/ Dr. D

Hello, Cadre, it's me, Dr. D and my coffee. Welcome to my coffee chat. I had a interesting moment where I was trying to decide what was I going to talk about today. Because there's just so much going on in the world. Well, in the US Particularly, but there's just been so many exciting things happening in my life. But also there's a lot of ups and downs with some of the clients that I've been working with. And just some of the things I've seen online has just been kind of chaotic and stressful and I want to touch on that.

Hello everybody that's joining. As you're joining, please let me know where you are located, what state you're in, what city you're in. I love to see where people are coming from. I am in the St. Louis area, but I'm in Illinois. It's kind of confusing. There is an East St. Louis, Illinois, but I'm not from East St. Louis. I'm in O'Fallon, Illinois. But I am coming to you today. I'm home, enjoying the sun. The weather has been really weird here. It's still warm somewhat. I still don't need a coat.

And it's. Oh, you're in New York. Nice. I've been in New York once. I was there last year in December and it was freezing. I did not like it. I did enjoy some of the things that I saw, but the weather, oh, I cannot live there. Couldn't do it. So I hope you love it there in New York though. But today I want to talk about friendship. We are here talking about connections and I am a relationship therapist and friendship has been a hot topic. I've noticed that in social media. Maybe it's just a feed that I have.

I don't know. Let me know. As you guys have noticed, but friendship is a touchy subject for some people. There are some people who have not had the best luck with developing friendship. And I think sometimes what we think is a friendship really isn't that. And so I'll give an example of that. Maybe you know people that you talk to on a regular basis where you see them frequently, you share something personal about yourself, but maybe you notice that that person doesn't always share a lot about them or they only share things about themselves to get information from you.

I don't know if you guys have experienced that. I have. Doesn't always feel too good. Thanks for dropping your coffee mugs in there. Speak wonder. And it is, it's a challenge to navigate. Like, is this person really my Friend, can I trust them? And once you start to notice the signs that that person may not really be a friend, what do you do? You know, it's. It's hard, especially if you're a person that's just. You have a big heart and you just want to love on people. You'll kind of, you'll try to love them through that and see, maybe I can change their mind.

Or maybe I just need to be their friend. And sometimes that happens too. Maybe you're the friend in the relationship where that person doesn't necessarily need to be your friend, but you're in their life for their season. And that's the only reason why you guys are connected. So maybe there's something about you that they need to see so they can see themselves better. I am really a big advocate for looking at how we mirror each other and how our connections are really some, I think God sent sometimes where we are supposed to reflect something good and sometimes things that we don't necessarily like about ourselves to each other.

So if you have a friend that kind of rubs you the wrong way. If you really take a look at that relationship, there might be something you don't like about them that actually is within yourself. I'm gonna let y'all sit with that for a second. I have experienced that myself. Where there's a person, I'm like, oh, I don't like that about this person. Why are they acting like that? And then once I did some reflection, I'm like, I've done that. Oh, maybe I need to change that about myself and stop judging them.

Speak. Wonder. You say you're a chronic approval seeker. So what you describe. Oh, okay, it's a trap. Yes. When we are seeking approval, I think we, we maybe connect to the wrong people sometimes. Where we are seeking approval in friendships, maybe we're not getting that in a romantic relationship or with our family. And so we seek other people in different connections, like coworkers. You know, coworkers can become friends too. But sometimes that relationship ends as soon as you leave wherever you're working or that person leaves the job.

And for those of us who've experienced like long term friendships with people we've maybe met in college or maybe someone that we connect with at work. Those are some really important relationships to cultivate, and that takes work. But I also, you know, I've noticed this. I just went on a trip this past weekend to Chicago and I was actually in my college area and so I met up with one of my college roommates and we've been friends for over 20 years, since the first day of college our freshman year.

And we don't talk all the time. We don't see each other all the time, even though we're only about four hours away from each other. But when we do connect, it's like nothing changed. You know, we're. We're still the same. We still love each other the same way. And we. We realize at this age, I'm in my 40s now, that we don't have to talk all the time, and that's okay. But when we meet each other again, when we connect, it's like, girl, I miss you so much. You know, tell me everything. And we can have, like, hours, long conversations, you know, trying to catch up with everything.

And those are relationships that you really have to cultivate because. And I don't know if it necessarily takes a lot of work and effort when that happens. I think there are just some people that you just naturally gravitate towards, that they speak the same language as you, if that makes sense when it comes to love and connection. And you don't have to work so hard. But that doesn't mean that friendships aren't going to be a challenge. Okay. And I wanted to bring this up, too, with the results of the election.

I'm not going to get into all of that, but what I do want to talk about is how this has impacted friendships. Now this has really disturbed me, and I don't understand it. I have seen some posts, people that I am friends with, like on Facebook or Instagram, and there will be posts about if you believe such and such, and if you voted for this person, then just unfriend me, don't follow me anymore, and it doesn't make any sense to me. You know, if you're friends with someone, like the friends that I have, I don't necessarily agree with everything that they believe, or I don't necessarily agree with everything they do, but we still have a very strong and healthy connection.

And I think sometimes it's okay. And I think it's healthy when you have a connection with someone that you might have differing opinions because you can learn something from each other. But when you shut that communication off because you're upset about something or you don't agree with someone, you really put yourself at a disadvantage because you're not in a place where you can learn something about yourself from the other person. So getting back to the mirroring, we reflect what's in ourselves to others, and others reflect what's in them to Us.

And so when we shut that line of communication off, we don't have a chance to even see ourselves in better light. Now, let me know if any of this is resonating with you. If you're feeling this, please drop that coffee mug in that in the chat for me, because this is something that I didn't necessarily think about when I was younger, but as I'm getting older and wiser and helping other people with relationships, I think it's important that we really take a look at why do we disconnect from certain people that we called friend?

And if it's so easy to cut them off like that because we have differing opinions, is that really your friend? I don't know. I'll let y'all decide that for yourselves. But for me, if someone is just willing to just cut me off because I have a differing opinion, that's. That's. That person's not my friend. You know, my friends will hear me out. My friends might challenge my thoughts. My friends might say, hey, I agree with this part, but not that. And what that does is it makes me grow when we have a healthy conversation about things we don't agree on.

So I'm curious what your experiences have been with that. I think it's maybe something that's going to be really important in the next few months with the results of the election, but also with the holidays approaching. And these are times when we should be connecting with family and friends. But I've already heard from some of my clients that they're worried about Thanksgiving, they're worried about Christmas time because of what's happening right now and because there's so much pull and disconnection that's happening because of something that's happening in our nation.

And it's sad. It's heartbreaking to me. You know, I think we have to find the root of our love for each other, and that doesn't always happen in family. Again, we don't get to choose our family, but we do get to choose our friends. And so if you are making a diligent effort to connect with someone through friendship, just consider, why are you friends in the first place? And two considerations. Consider, is that person someone you want to stay connected to, even if they have differing opinions from you?

And are you willing to challenge yourself by listening to what they have to say? So that's all I got for y'all. That was a lot. It was really random. But that's just something that was on my heart today, and I hope that spoke to you. I will if you're watching the replay. I do watch the replay myself just to see if there's any other comments that jump up, but please leave a note in the chat for me if any of this resonated with you. If there's a story that you would like to share about your own experience, I would love to read that and follow up with you.

But y'all have a wonderful day and don't forget your coffee. Bye.