Life Uncut - PART 2: Navigating friendship through different life stages - Uncut with Dr Hannah Korrel

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

Welcome to part 2 of our 2 parter. In part 1, we were joined by Sam Koslowski, co-founder of The Daily Aus, to unpack abortion bans in the US. You can find that episode in your podcast libraries.In part 2, we sat down with Dr Hannah Korrel to chat about navigating friendships throughout different stages of your life!Maybe you're single and travelling and your friend has gotten married and wants to have kids soon? Maybe your friend is moving for their career and you're wanting to change occupations?We also chat about how many 'really close' friends we can actually have, how our identity changes and how that impacts our friendships and when we should let go of friendships.You can find everything about Dr Hannah Korrel here: https://hannahkorrel.comTell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love because we love love! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded on Gadigal land of the Aurora Nation. Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm producer Keisha and I've just got a quick 30 second explainer for you of what is happening with today's episode. This is part two of the episode so if you have found yourself here and you haven't listened to part one go and

have a quick little search through your podcast libraries listen to part one first and then you can come and join us back here. In part one of today's episode, obviously the whole world at the moment is talking about these abortion bans that are happening in the US. Laura and Britt sat down with Sam Kozlowski, the co-founder of The Daily Oz, to explain what is going on and kind of all the legal jargon and what it means for these women in America. And for part two of this episode, Britt and Laura were joined by neuropsychologist Dr. Hannah Correll to talk about navigating friendships throughout different stages of your life. So let's get into that chat. Today, we're talking about friendship on the podcast. And now I think when we speak about

friendship, we speak about relationships so much. And one of the biggest relationships that we have to navigate throughout our life is our relationships with our friends. Now we did a podcast episode many, many, many moons ago with neuropsychologist, Dr. Hannah Correll, and she is back joining us today. But what we're talking about on today's episode is something slightly different. We're talking about how do you navigate friendships when you enter into extremely different life stages than your friends. And we're talking, for example, what if your friends start having babies or they're getting married, or even if they're studying for something really important, but you're off traveling, how do you maintain that close connection? So Dr. Hannah, we are

so excited to have you here today. Welcome back to the podcast. Hello. So good to be here. Now, Hannah did come on, like Laura said. Hannah was on with us. When was that? Was it back in January maybe at the start of the year? So probably six months ago. And we did make Hannah do an Accidentally Unfiltered,

like we make every single guest. And we thought, do we let her get away with another one or do we put her on the spot and see if she's got any other embarrassing stories? And you have come through with the goods, Hannah. You do have another embarrassing story. I mean, the last time we spoke, the embarrassing story was Milky Feet. But Britt, I actually think it was pre-COVID. It was like, it was years ago.

Don't tell me it hasn't been on the podcast for two years. Because I was out dancing. So it was pre-lockdown. I have no concept of time. This is what COVID has done to me. I'm like, I don't know. Was it yesterday? Was it five years ago?

Who knows? Oh, I've come up with another juicy one. I was up all night last night going, are they going to ask? I was rocking in my bed. Are they going to ask? Are they going to ask? What do I tell them? No, we don't want to be that podcast that induces anxiety

before you come on as a guest. No, we do. I've come up with one. I racked my brains. I've come up with one guys. Okay. Hit us. What have you got? Okay. So if you follow my Instagram, you'll know that my cat, Jeff, who is a rescue cat, he features heavily on my Instagram. And when I first got him, he had a very sensitive tummy. He was a flatulent little cat. Oh, gotta love that. So he used to have, I don't know, I think I was just feeding him the wrong stuff. So he used to be like a little he'd get like a really distended tummy and he'd be like a little balloon but he's very cute super cute cat anyway like a bloated round hat full of hot air so I was dating a guy I quite liked him actually and I have you guys ever seen singing bowls you know singing bowls

yep yep yeah therapy and stuff I love I've got these two beautiful singing bowls and so we're on the floor like I'm about to start this incredible sound therapy session for him with this beautiful singing i'm like this is your heart chakra and this is your throat chakra explaining all the like quantum mechanics to him and he's like oh wow and then jeff comes and sits right beside him i'm like i'll just move him out the way as i push him away he deflates oh the most rank putrid smell and then bless this guy's soul we sat there and we like just pretended we couldn't

smell this hideous fart well whilst you did a singing bowl in your lounge room anyway I don't recommend it as a first date guys all I can think of this guy thinking right it's like when you're like hey come into my house come lay on the floor with me and I'll do singing bowls he's probably like yeah this is some sex move I haven't heard of yeah we're gonna get freaky then he just gets farted on by a cat funnily enough nothing eventuated after that also this is why you need this is what i say to people this is a really good reason to have a dog yes or any pet yes they're therapy yes they're a companion but at the end of the day you can use them as a cover if you do a fart for clarity if the guy is listening i swear it was not me it was definitely

Jeff. Dr. Hannah, we're so excited to have you back on the podcast. But before we get into unpacking all of the conversations around friendships, I know that there's going to be a few people out there who didn't listen to our first interview. So can you explain to everyone what is a neuropsychologist? Yeah, that's the great question. Nobody knows my job. Yeah, so we're quite a rare specialty. I think there's like 7,000 all of Australia. So So neuropsychology is a type of psychology where we assess brain disorders. So we do the pen and paper testing to figure out what part of your brain is working well and what part of your brain isn't working so well.

So you can put someone in a scanner, like an MRI or a CT scanner, and you can find out what the structure of their brain looks like, and maybe even a little bit about the functional imaging of their brain. But most of those scans just show you a picture, like an x-ray of a break in your arm. It doesn't actually tell you what it functionally can do. So it doesn't tell you what your brain can do in terms of attention, speed, executive function, memory. We come in and we test those parts of your brain so that we can tell the doctors, okay,

this part of Laura's brain is working amazingly and this other part might need more help. I mean, maybe I should get the test done. I think all of us need the test. So I basically do a lot of diagnosis. So things like autism, ADHD, dementia, intellectual disabilities, things like that. But you have written a book and that's what we discussed last time you joined us. on how to break up with friends correct what was it about friendships that was a real driving force for you that made you want to have a greater and broader conversation around it I think from my

background so I'm like I've done a PhD in neuroscience I'm a neuropsychologist obviously my background I was a psychologist first and I specialized I love the science of relationships and the actual the science on toxic relationships is fascinating we have a lot of data on what it does to your body when you're in a chronic toxic relationship whether that's domestic or friendship or work related it has a serious physiological effect on your body and even though we have all this incredible data we don't really talk about it very much when it comes to friendship I don't know I just found it really fascinating and I just started writing one day and yeah that a year later it was a manuscript so I got it published. Hannah this is why we get people like you on because you

are so overqualified you have so you have you're like I have this degree this degree this degree this PhD this is what I've done this is why we get you because Laura and I we're very very enthusiastic but you actually know your shit do you think when we're jumping into friendships like this is something I don't know if you guys have heard this now I don't know if this is like a myth or but you see them on the Instagram quotes and things like that they say if you've been friends with someone for seven years you'll be friends forever do you think that's accurate or do you think a friendship can end after any time do you think you could be best friends with someone for 20 years and then all of a sudden you're like oh you're not my person anymore that's an awesome

question I think you know it taps into the concept of familiarity and familiarity is one of the things that help us to form a foundation or connection with a person and find a tribe I do think that it's probably wishful thinking to think you get to a magic number and then you're just solid forever it's like sort of like saying if you can get to seven years in a marriage your marriage will never go wrong but that's kind of hard to we can't predict those things and things happen in life especially I don't know about you guys but decades are passing very quickly for me at the moment so yes I mean I thought you were on the podcast six months ago it was like two years ago I thought it was six months ago too it was like literally season one

my life is flashing before my eyes uh yeah so you really do have significant changes that you can go through in life so there's things that can happen I'm sure we'll talk about that today like friendships, changing with children, marriages, deaths in the family, career changes, all of those things can happen. And they don't necessarily, I think time and longitudinal friendships buffer you. They certainly give you a better buffer in case something goes wrong. So you've got a little wider, I don't know, I like to use the analogy of Pac-Man eating away at that buffer. And so you've got a wider buffer that might be eaten through before your friendship would, you know, be at risk of ending. But I don't think that time is the only thing that predicts the quality of

friendship. And I guess one of the things as well, like when we think about these, our friendships changing over the years, it's definitely happened to me since I've had kids in terms of like your priority shift, not just your priorities, but like the physical amount of time that you have to invest in the things that you used to be able to invest in. And one of those being friendships, you know, I used to be able to go out for dinners on whatever night I wanted to and see my friends on the weekends. And those things don't happen with the same frequency anymore, especially because a lot of them don't have children. And so, you know, they don't want to come to the park and hang out at the park on a Sunday morning at 9am. And I

don't want to go out on a Friday night at 10 o'clock. So like the things kind of shift in that way. But I mean, this is probably a big question to throw at you from the very start, but how do you think when you hit those really different milestones, how do you think that you can maintain a quality amount of friendship or how do you maintain sort of the same level of intensity or if it's even possible? I mean, this is a great question. I think last time I was on the podcast, we talked a little bit about the Dunbar number, which is how many friends, how many really, really, really close friends your brain can actually handle. So looking at that from a different lens, if you guys remember, you know, Dunbar is like this great sociologist who kind of

mapped on the cortex of our brain with how many friends we could potentially handle. So it's a complex relationship. The closer the friendship, the more complex the relationship is, the closer any relationship is to you, whether it's a husband, a mother, a child, the more intimate the relationship, the more complex it is in your brain. So it takes up cognitive real estate in your brain. So they say about five people is how many we can handle on a really, really close intimate level. And that includes your partner, your family, and your friends. And if you think about that time-wise, Laura, what you just said, it makes sense. You've only got so much real estate in your brain and you've only got so many hours in your day so I think firstly being a little bit

forgiving to yourself if you don't have an abundance of time because you are giving it to people who you love and people who are important like your children and your husband and you know maybe your family seeing your mom seeing your dad those things are really important I think women in society have a real problem with holding a lot of guilt that we have to do it all we have to be there for everyone and taking on board you know if my friend was having a hard time and I needed to commit to you know going home and making lolly bags for my three-year-old's birthday because I've got to do so much work because you know you're an amazing mum and then we hold on to that guilt of like maybe I wasn't I wasn't as available because I had to take care of this

little person this little human being but it's interesting that you say this idea of this Dunbar being five people because I don't think and I think a lot of mums would be thinking this you never intentionally put your children into the same bracket as being your friends you don't go oh I want to be friends with my three-year-old no of course you become friends with them no and it's funny because like I'll say to Marley like you're my best friend and then some days I'm like no really you're actually my best friend because I spend all my time with you but like there truly isn't enough space sometimes and I don't think that there's ever an intentional thought of pushing people out of your life but sometimes there is a type of erosion that happens to

friendships when you don't get to be as intentional with them I guess yeah but when you think about it five friends like not even friends five people that your brain or your body can say I can tolerate five is not many like I have six people in my family super super close yeah but I only and that makes sense because I do have a really small number of people I keep in my life and I've always wondered I was like is that just because I run myself ragged or is it because there's something a more deep-seated issue where I physically don't have the brain capacity to give any more of me and then there's a level of like you just said guilt I'm so I feel so selfish because maybe my friends need me right now or but how do we know when we can cut that off how do we know

when it's we're more important than maybe a friend that needs us at that time I think that gets to the heart of friendships and the changes we go through life there's this term this great word is called didactic shifts or didactic withdrawals. And that just refers to the energy that goes into the identity of you. So the identity of Brittany through university or the identity of Laura as a businesswoman or the identity of each of you as a media personality. So there's all these different identities in your life as you go through different stages of your life and they change and shift as new parts of your life begin being a mother being a wife being a parent being I don't know a business person all of those things are a didactic profile for you there's a lot of energy

that goes into those things and everyone has that like regardless of who you are whatever thing it is that you are throwing yourself into that is part of profiling who you are yeah that's exactly right and then as things change in your life as you get married become a wife become a mother, you have didactic withdrawals and didactic shifts, which means that you're taking energy from one part of your identity and putting it into forming a new part of your identity. And it's quite well established in the literature that we know, for example, parents is a great example. They do have a contraction of their relationships in the first two years of bringing up children, where their friendship networks do shrink as they have to become quite a bit more insular

to survive that period you know probably remember Laura where you you're not sleeping you're not eating you're barely going to the toilet yourself let alone you know surviving yeah and so there's a huge amount of energy that's going into being a mom surviving this new part of your life which means that you don't have the same energy that you can put into other parts in your life and it's not because you're a bad person it's not because you don't care about your friends it's because that energy has changed and you need to feel a different part of your identity and there's not as much I suppose cognitive real estate emotional energy to and physical time to put into friendships at that point in your life so what tends to happen in

friendships when we hit these different stages because it's nice in an ideal world to think like you know you're going to be best friends with the same best friend throughout all of your life I mean that Netflix series that everyone got into last year which was Firefly Lane and it was following these two young girls through their teenage years through their adulthood through these all these different phases and how they held on to this incredible friendship and then obviously something happened at the end of the season I was bullet for everyone but it made me think in that time I was like that is so unique I don't like and I'm sure that there are people out there who have managed to and have like lifelong 30 year old friends I know there are

so many of those people but I would find it interesting if those people have never gone through periods where they've seen less of each other or had less of an intensity to the friendship that's not to say that you're not friends with people for 30 years of course you're going to be but that relationship hasn't changed at all over those 30 years seems like a really unreasonable or like almost fantastical thing to be able to hold on to yeah a bit unrealistic I sort of like to think of it like orbiting planets right so we're sort of like planets orbiting around each other so in the literature again it's well established that you do have normal ebbs and flows of friendship as you go through those different life stages so what we tend to align

with people who have the same values as us at a particular time in our life so might have been at uni we really enjoyed going out together we really enjoyed studying together and then something happened and I started a family and that person started a business and our priorities at that time shifted a little bit so we're still friends we still can chat with each other we can still spend beautiful time together but our planets have kind of just moved a little bit further apart in our orbits and then one day they may come back together again as we move forward and maybe they become a parent and and they seek advice from our experience as a parent and we start a business and we seek advice from them as how they found you know being a you know a sole

trader so it's a little bit like you're orbiting planets that are sometimes coming together and then sometimes moving away. I think what changes is the amount of energy. So I talk in the book about the different types of energy that we can give. So you have time, you've got energy and you've got money that you can give to another person. So it might just be that at that time in your life, there's less physical time in your schedule and your calendar that you can spend with this individual. But we've all got those friends that you see and you know, it's like no time has passed. It feels like you've just been speaking with them. You can have an amazing friendship with someone that you only see maybe once every three months or once every six months or it's an

occasional text message and then a proper catch-up you can't have friendships like that so I have my best friend Shannon we've been best friends for 30-31 years and in that time this is no exaggeration we have not had one argument one disagreement ever like we were just very lucky that the universe gave us two people that get along like you've never ever imagined she is in a place where she's got two kids now we live in a different state she got married years ago like we took very different paths but that didn't change the friendship at all in terms of how much we care for each other and how much we do for each other what it did change is the physical time that you spent together but I think that's a part of growing up as well she's in a different state the way that we catch

up now is very very different and that is something that was it's a really hard adjustment that definitely has level of adaptations that you have to do as individuals and a level of understanding and there's a lot of emotions that come with this there's a lot of jealousy that comes along with for both parties but I think the number one thing is that you have to be able to adapt to your your friend's situation at the end of the day I couldn't just call her whenever I want she's not going to be on the phone anymore whenever I want because she's looking after two children she's she's running a school I can't just turn up and say hey let's go and hang out for the weekend much like I do with Laura now but I think if you are really conscious of each other's friendships

and you check in with yourself about where your friends are at and you're really honest and you're okay with it, I think that friendships can last this time. They can last the distance, but you both have to be very, very conscious of where your other person is at. When friendships, I mean, I'm going to ask you in a second, but I think where the friendships go wrong

is where there's no level of communication and there is a level of selfishness, like I'm not okay with the fact that you're out partying all the time when I'm stuck at home with kids or I'm not okay with the fact that you get to have this love life and I'm alone on my own all the time. So I think it's this level of like just having open communication. Yeah. You've tapped into two, two qualities that probably are really important to mention. One is expectations. What is your expectation when your friendship changes, when somebody has had a baby, do you have the

level of insight and awareness to understand that friend? It's not personal. It's not that they don't like me anymore they physically are wiping poop off the walls and the ceilings and the floors they don't have time for coffee and you know you know margaritas at the bar like they used to and that's nothing to do with the quality of our friendship or how much they like me so it involves a level of maturity which you would hope someone would have at that age when you're starting to have children to understand this is not a reflection of our friendship this is a reflection of the fact that I just lack the time that I used to have to go and do the same things that we used to do. I guess the big thing in that though, is just because it's not necessarily

a reflection of the relationship. So like, I mean, and there's a big conversation around here that it's not always a relationship. It can be the circumstances, right? And there's, they're two very different things to try and identify, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt less. And for the person who feels left behind in that friendship or the person who feels like, well, my life hasn't changed, but I've lost that person who was my go-to, it can be really, really hard and yes it takes a level of maturity but I don't think that we can completely discount that like it's still okay to have feelings of jealousy or have feelings of mourning a relationship because it can feel like a breakup even if it's not a breakup it's just a shift oh bang on the

nail on the head head on the nail head on the nail head on the nail whatever it was you hit it Laura that is exactly right and the and the different types of jealousy you know I like that you mentioned that word because I think people can kind of tap into that feeling and there's a bit of shame associated with that we don't necessarily want to acknowledge it we can feel really hurt we can feel left out excluded and those emotions really hurt you know in your brain we have this thing called the anterior cingulate gyrus and that is the part of your brain that lights up when somebody I don't know kicks you in the shin but it's also the same part of your brain that lights up when you have emotional pain so your body actually your brain can't tell the difference

between physical and emotional pain it can hurt just as much so like when we have a breakup like with a romantic partner your body actually floods you with a bunch of hormones that are like physical pain receptors being turned on it's so interesting that you say that because i think anybody who has been through a bad breakup anyone who has felt the pain of a bad breakup knows that it goes beyond just feeling like it's in your head or in your heart. Like you feel it from anxiety to feeling physically sick. It has a real physiological impact on you. Yes. And so literally saying things like when you have a partner or a friend who's gone through a breakup, telling them to actually have a Panadol helps because their body, their pain, I'm not kidding. I've been on

Nurofen for six months now. I get it. I get it. You know, I was there four weeks ago and you physically your body hurts your heart is deflated you know these pain receptors in your body are actually going off it's really easy for us to assume that mental health is a bit of you know have a teaspoon of concrete and harden up we in society we have a real systemic issue with acknowledging emotional pain but it's important to note yeah it does really hurt when it comes to you know jealousy and being envious and sometimes that's the core of what's going on when we've had a friend and you know I'm there my sisters are all married with children and I'm you know single and wanting those things but I'm not there yet there is a bit of envy there there's a bit of

like I want that for myself and I think jealousy is a word that it's caught this negative connotation to it and it's not necessarily a bad thing and in the book if I can I'll mention like we've got a questionnaire in the book which is about the different types of jealousy that you can feel the dutch have really nailed the terminology so there's two different types of jealousy you can or envy that you can feel which is really wanting something that someone else has achieved in their life and that's not a bad thing it can be a lovely thing it's so interesting you say that though because you are so right we think of jealousy as being such a dirty emotion but we all can feel it at different times and it's how you react to a feeling having a feeling doesn't make you a bad

person nor should you feel guilty for it but it's how do your actions then flow on from that but what is the what is the dutch the dutch word yeah so you've got benigend i'm probably butchering this benigend which is benign envy and then you've got aftgunst which is more of a malicious intent it's it's envy with a malicious intention to it so benigend envy and there's a questionnaire in the book where you can actually identify what type of envy are you feeling for your friend is it benigent is it a benign envy where you're just admiring what they've achieved in their life and you would like you aspire to that as well which is a beautiful quality that's probably why you're friends with that person because you admire what they've done with their life and you share

the same values I would like to be there too one day I would like to have a beautiful marriage with communication and an incredible partner and children one day I think that's a beautiful thing that you've achieved whereas aftgunst would be we've probably all been there that's the toxic type of relationship where you have that friend who's a bit more like the frenemy who lacks that respect for you fundamentally who maybe is passive-aggressive who's constantly undermining you and the words that are coming out of their mouth are hurtful and it causes you pain to hang out with that person because underneath the layers there's this really insidious I suppose erosive feeling going on where they're they're undermining you because they've got that malicious

feeling towards you. There's something that Brit said earlier, which I'd love to kind of go back to a little bit. And it's this idea that, and I'm sure everybody has felt this in their friendships where we have so much going on in life. We've just survived a pandemic. People are busy with their jobs. People are busy with their families. So many of us feel like in our own lives that we're up to our eyeballs with our own stress or our own anxiety or our own feelings of overwhelm or whatever it is, that then sometimes you feel like you're too at your limit to take on somebody else's. And, you know, I think a lot of us or at different times may have experienced friendships where

the friendships are quite demanding in that the other person's problem always seems like the bigger problem, which, and this can happen a lot in friendships when one person has kids and the other person doesn't, it can often feel one-sided. Well, the person who has kids, their problems are always the bigger problem because they've How do you work through that or how do you find a good balance for yourself when you're at a point where you're like, I can't physically take on any more of other people's problems because I've got my own shit going on. How do you do that, but in a kind and compassionate way? It is tricky. And I've been there with my, my sisters are like my best mates. And it is a little bit like that

sometimes when there's a relativity to issues and we only have so much emotional capacity. I don't know if you guys have heard with like emotional willpower, you know, you think of Barack Obama or Mark Zuckerberg, they had this really nifty idea where they're basically limiting the amount of choices that they make in a day by wearing the same outfits again and again and again. Because we have, you know, it's a bit like the mental load, right? You only have so much emotional willpower. And we talk about this a lot with things like neurodiversity, your emotional cup and how much you can carry in your emotional cup gets filled up really quickly. And if you have three children in the mix and a marriage in the mix, and you haven't got a lot of room

leftover you haven't got a lot of buffer leftover to manage somebody else's emotions so you know I think it's a little bit of patience with yourself and forgiveness with yourself understanding what are your boundaries and what are your limits and how much have you got to give sometimes being realistic about that and if it's stressing you out and running you ragged to try to book in the coffee date and to try to be there for your friend when you're panicking about what's going on at home, recognizing maybe you're just not in that place right at that moment to be able to give that emotional energy. And that's okay. It's okay to have those days. And then the opposite of that, the flip side of that is recognizing it's okay to carve out space in your life and time in your life

to spend time with some friends and to have a break. And I think, you know, we talked about this a little earlier women sometimes have a real a real problem with being able to just give themselves the permission to continue to maintain other parts of their identity and go yeah I really I'm going to keep going to the gym I'm going to keep dancing I'm going to keep seeing my friends occasionally and I'm going to carve out I'm going to give myself this emotional space this guilt-free time to say from this hour to this hour it's a little bit like what we do sometimes in therapy is just accept a little bit of acceptance acceptance commitment therapy where for this period of time I'm accepting that I'm here right now there's nothing else I can do I can't take

care of the kids I can't take care of the business I'm just here right now in this moment and all I can do is be here with this person I'm going to give myself the permission to not worry about that right now I'm going to park it leave that worry and concern over here and it will be there when I'm ready to pick it back up that worry will still be there but here and now in this moment I can be present with my friend and I can just be with this this other soul I haven't really thought about it that much until right now actually as you were talking I was having this realization but friendships are way more complex and way harder to navigate than a relationship isn't it because I feel like when you're in a relationship you know you can go to that person

you know that they're there you know that they're your confidant you know if you're having a bad day you're allowed to unload on them vice versa with friendships and I was thinking this just as you were talking Laura you don't want to be that person when you know yourself you're like oh okay well I don't have any room for other people's problems they probably don't have room for mine either and this is something I've navigated the last sort of six eight months a lot of people in my life didn't know that I was having a really really fucking hard time because I don't want to be that person where I'm like everyone's already got their problems like everyone already has I don't want to unload I don't want to tell anyone that I'm struggling or because you don't want to

go and be that person to a friend that's already going through their own problems how do you navigate that in a friendship how do you decide because you've got a it's like the trickiest balance of any relationship of trying to be like I'm trying to be a good friend to you but I need you now as well but I don't have anyone else to go to like how do you navigate these circumstances well I was gonna say just on what you said as well Brit I think one of the hardest parts of this is and we've we've spoken a lot about going into just becoming like a parent or like shifting into that stage but from the other perspective as well when you are single and you rely therefore so much more heavily on your friends that's when this becomes a much harder process to navigate because

like you've lost that support person or you've lost that and I think that we plug into our friends in the same way that we when we're single that we would plug into a romantic relationship and so many of us have probably gone through when one of our friends have gotten into a romantic relationship and then we've lost them they've just gone with their fucking smoke bomb they've gone to love. They're gone. They got a boyfriend and then we never saw them again. You know, so many people do that. RIP. We'll hold your funeral. Totally. I mean, it's a hard question. I know we've just given you like a very hard question. No, I mean, there's so many different parts to this. Like firstly, in the book I talk about, let's break down what the heck is a

friendship? What are the pillars of friendship? And, you know, I think they sit under the umbrella of reciprocity, which is, it doesn't mean transactional relationships. I did this, so you did this and I bought you this, so you bought me this. That's kind of a more immature understanding of reciprocity in a relationship, which is tit for tat. Whereas a reciprocal relationship is one where there's mutual interest, there's mutual caring, there's mutual empathy, and there's a back and forth flow. And sometimes it's a little more for one person and sometimes a little less, but it's a constant flow and it's a constant willingness and reaching out and a constant desire to be connected with one another

in whatever means that is. And I think the pillars of friendship underneath is affection, respect, trust, and support. So Brittany, kind of what you're tapping into there is we all have our own insecurities. We all have our own core beliefs that sit deep down in our hearts about what the way we believe the world to be.

These core beliefs, which are these filters that brainwash us from a very young age that tell us how to interpret our world. And if way deep down one of those triggers for you or those core beliefs are things like not good enough or this is I don't want to burden people, I'm a burden, my worries or concerns are burdening people or I'm unlikable or unlovable in some way, the way in which we'll filter or see our friendships is to go they don't want to hear about this, they're too busy to hear about this, I'm a burden and we're looking through our issues through

this lens of maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe our friend doesn't want to hear this. But I think if you really reached out and had that trust with your friend where you're like, hey, I'm actually having a really tough time. I'm not feeling good, mate. I'm not feeling it. My heart's hurting. I'm hurting. This has been really hard for me. Sort of almost that reaching out, that flow of friendship I was talking about before where you reach out and say, I'm not okay. And trust that that friend is there to catch you and say yep I'm here for you I'm going to sit with you maybe I don't know exactly what to say but I can see you're in a dark place and I'm just going to sit beside you while you're here right now do you think that this links into how powerful vulnerability is

because when somebody is seemingly fine and when we present that we're fine when we're not fine that that's not the person that gets tended to you know if you put on a hard exterior people genuinely go oh they're all right they're all right move on with their day but when you sort of show your softer underbelly or show what's happening in your life in a way of communicating that to people who care about you that vulnerability strengthens friendships it strengthens bonds vulnerability is a great word because the fear of wanting to I don't know I guess you know I think in Australia we have and probably around the world the concept of friendship is this idea of having lots of friends is to be cool to be popular the essence of being cool is nonchalant like too cool

to care cool as a cucumber don't rock the boat there's no issues I'm the fun one I'm the one who you know I've never worked up I never complain about anything and I'm always positive and you know we a lot of psychology is about being a positive presence when you're around other people and they'll want to be around you more. And this fear that if I am real, if I say I'm having a hard day, if I'm down one day and I show this other, I take my mask off and I show this other part of myself, which is feeling really crummy and I'm feeling really low, that our friend might not want to hang out with us anymore. And they might not like hanging out with us. And there's a bit of a fear there where we're like, I don't want to unload my burden or I don't want to vent what's

happening for me because I don't want you to think I'm a buzzkill. Like, God forbid you're ever a buzzkill. And I guess that's where the trust part of the friendship and the support part of the friendship comes in of a true friendship is where you can trust that that person has a safety net for you. They're okay to hear what you're talking about and you feel the ability. And I think Brittany and Laura, you guys have a beautiful friendship where you can trust each other to say like, Hey, I'm having a tough day. I'm having a hard time and know that that person is going to be able to support you in that moment. And you can trust that they're not going to get annoyed. Oh yeah. We have, I mean, we have all levels of friendship, don't we, Laura?

Totally. And the reason why we wanted to do this episode is because when we met, I didn't have kids. So when we met, I was pregnant and then we have weathered over the past two and a half years or three, sorry, three and a half years now, starting a business together, me having kids, different relationship stages for Brit. Like there's been a lot of change that's happened in both our worlds and it's interesting because I know that we keep coming back to this conversation around kids and that's obviously because that's where I'm at in my life but we have had times where like I feel jealous of Brit's ability to live her life without being tied down you know with her being able to go overseas or go out for dinner or her and producer Keisha have a really

strong friendship because they can go out for dinners and do things together whereas I don't have that freedom anymore so I think it works both ways I think often we talk about how there's this want when there's like somebody who doesn't have children or hasn't isn't at that point in life yet we talk a lot about looking in on somebody's family and wanting what they have whereas we never really also talk about the flip side of that of people going whoa but my life has completely changed now and and I miss some of those things from my old identity that I used to be able to do so it works on both sides of the spectrum and but the thing that's obviously kept our friendship together is that we have this thing that we work on that's our joint project that we always get to

come back to and which means we have to see each other multiple times a week whereas if we were just friends that didn't have the work to come back to we wouldn't see each other as much as what we do and that wouldn't be because we don't love each other but it would be because this is the thing that means that we have a responsibility and accountability but kind of coming to that point how can we be more intentional with our friendships yeah that's actually really a beautiful model of friendship there because we talked earlier about that didactic profile of your identity and where you put your identity if you guys have ever seen venn diagrams they're overlapping circles you've got that friendship circle overlapping with a business circle and

in the middle is that this beautiful sweet spot where you get time together because you have over shared interests and you have a shared investment, which is a great nifty way. So I don't know if anyone's listening, start a podcast with your friend. Everyone start a podcast. You're double spoking, if I may. In the book, I talk about friendships and how you can maintain a solid relationship with friendships. And it helps if your friends are also friends with each other. So we think of like a wheel and the spokes of a wheel connecting other friends to each other and not just to you, then it's not just reliant on you to maintain that friendship. But if your friends also know each other, then they're going to sort out occasions to get together too. And it takes

the pressure off you. You're double-spoking in the sense that's a double-spoke friendship where your friends are also friends with one another. What you've double-spoked with is by having a friendship and a business together where you're overlapping in that sense too. So you're spending time together in that way too. And that's an awesome nifty way of, you know, solidify. Yeah. Like let's go and learn salsa together. Let's do an eight week course of salsa together, or let's go and do pottery together. Let's commit to something. This is why people love their boot bootcamps, you know, committing with a friend to 6am bootcamp because then, you know, you have to get up at 6am because someone's holding you to account. Can you carve out a time that you can

commit to something that forces you guys to sit in the same room together and you have to be there at five o'clock on a Friday at whatever, you know, twice a month, something like that, where you're going to see each other. That's a beautiful way of maintaining a friendship. We've spoken a lot about I think one of the major transitions in friendships is when one starts to move away and settle down and have the kids and someone is single I think that that is obviously a very very major part of friendship transitions but what are some of the other ones that people might face in their friendships I guess that could be like things like career moves progression moving into state I actually wanted to say like what Laura you know Laura you just mentioned before we talked a little

bit about you know and both Brit and I are like single no children and you've got children and it feels a bit like single heavy but I wanted to acknowledge what you said before about we don't talk the other way around about I don't have this free time like you have and I'm envious of that beautiful relationship like Brit and Keisha have created I don't have the time to just drop everything and come out to the bar or come out to dinner there's a few key moments in life that until you have been through it you just don't get it and we have to accept that like some formative ones are things like the first time you've had sex you know until you've done it you don't get it Sometimes you do it, you still don't get it.

Oh, we all shouldn't be laughing so hard. Very true. Oh, God. You know, things like, on a sadder side, things like experiencing a death in the family or a death in the friendship, being pregnant, having a child, being married. It's like there's a line and until you have crossed that line and had that experience, you just don't really understand what it's about. And I think it can be hard, whatever stage you go through, whether it's traveling, whether it's partners, whether it's marriage, children, whatever it is, we have to kind of accept that there is unknown for one party compared to the other.

We can't know exactly what it's like to walk a day in your shoes and to live what you live. I really love that you said, and I think it's one that we absolutely haven't touched on and really should have, is experiencing a death in the family, experiencing the magnitude of grief. we struggle and we've spoken about this on a past episode with Elodie when we touched on grief but I think as a society we avoid negative feelings so we are often fearful of somebody who's experienced death of asking like how they truly feel for fear of triggering them being upset not realizing that they're probably always thinking about it especially in those initial days and weeks anyway but I mean I have spoken to people who have been through significant deaths and something that somebody close to them and I'm thinking of one specific time someone close to me said like I

understand how you feel because I've been through a really bad breakup and almost comparing a bad breakup where they felt like it was a death to them to an actual death and how hugely problematic sometimes trying to compare your circumstances because you want to relate because you want to reconnect but how that actually can be even more isolating because there truly are some things in life that until you've lived it you will not know and a death and a breakup will never ever be the same sometimes just accepting I don't get this because I haven't experienced it and I'm not going to try I think there's a risk of belittling the experience if we try to artificially empathize I think that's exactly it like you completely hit the nail on the head and it really just brings me

back to that comparison but you're trying to connect by making well somebody who might make that connection is trying to connect but truly all that's doing is minimizing that person's pain by connecting with your pain one thing before we do kind of wrap this up how important do you think it is to have people in your life who are in the same phase of life so for mums to be friends with mums for people who are experiencing grief to connect with people who've experienced grief for single people to have single friends, whatever life looks like for you, how important is it for your community to reflect your phase of life? I think you're talking about having a tribe and I think it's so important. I think there is a lot of happiness derived from a sense of

community and a sense of connectedness and having some spokes on your darn wheel where you feel connected to multiple people. The more people you have, the bigger your net feels. If you fall, you've got someone there to catch you. And there can be a lot of pressure. It's easy to connect with someone who is in the same place of life. You know, the bonds that you would form in a mother's group or the bonds you would form in an early business group, especially during COVID, when you're worried you're going to lose the business. You're almost like forging through trauma, a bond with those people, which can be so very strong. But the pressure to find somebody who's in the same space of life might be hard especially when we're adults it is hard to find

time to make friends but taking the pressure off and being able to say like I don't know exactly what you're going through but I'm going to try and help you in other ways and those other ways might be tell me what that feels like tell me about it what was it like for you and putting the hand on the back you know the power of putting your hand on someone's back and rubbing circles on their back can be huge. I think to sort of come full circle on this and we have for anyone that hasn't heard it we did do the episode about ending friendships we've talked about trying to navigate the friendships and maintain the friendships when you're going in different paths but how do you know when it's time to say maybe this one has run its course or maybe this isn't going to be one of

those lifelong friendships and maybe we are just too different how do you go about figuring out when something's not serving you anymore to the point of maybe it's time to walk away for me yeah good question I mean I'm obviously I'm a psychologist so my I advocate always always for inner reflection introspection looking inside yourself to find out what's going on so discussing those feelings if you I have a I'm a psychologist who has a psychologist so I'd say if you're really grappling with you know a seven-year friendship or a 20-year friendship and you're considering do I want to have a breakup with a friend yeah you know get the book have a read through it, but maybe it's time to talk to the GP, get a mental healthcare plan and see a

psychologist and have a few sessions where you can really do yourself the credit and the justice of talking this through with somebody in a dedicated space. I can't under-emphasize how helpful those avenues are. At the end of the day, a really quick and easy signpost is how do you feel? What is your gut instinct telling you? And we get really good in modern society to push our gut instinct down you know that the screams and the shouts of anxiety and stress and sadness are so loud and the pressure that we feel to maintain something or do something or just say yes commit more do more give more be more is huge and we push down that tiny little whisper of your gut instinct that tells you what's right for you what's actually working for you and what's hurting you

it's a tiny little whisper deep down. So, you know, if you're walking away from a relationship or an interaction with friends or anyone, and you're feeling crummy and crappy and drained and worse than before you entered the interaction, that's a pretty good signpost that something's not working for you in that relationship. And if you've already exhausted all your avenues of talking, expectations, processing, jealousy, all of those things, that might be an indication that the friendship has come to a place where your orbits have gotten so far apart. Maybe they'll come together again one day, maybe they won't, but it's okay for you to adjust your effort levels in a really respectful manner where you're just not putting in as much time or energy because

you simply don't have it anymore. Dr. Hannah, it is always an absolute joy having you on the podcast. We appreciate you taking the time so much, but just genuinely the way you speak about friendships putting things that all of us feel all of us navigate all of us have to deal with in our day-to-day lives but putting it in a way one that's very sciencey but also very palatable and just makes a lot of sense is so it's so refreshing to have somebody break that down for us and we love speaking with you the first time I think I'd love this one even more but thank you so much for coming back and being part of the podcast thank you for having me guys and if I can quickly tack on I just wanted to say thank you so much for as if I can be like a community representative

thank you for everything you guys do I've been watching your journey for a while now and you guys bust your ass for the community the amount of stuff you have done and you know last year I saw like all the different podcasts you were doing and all of that emotional load that must have gone into helping all those people talking to all those people you guys haven't had an easy run like I sometimes imagine I sit and imagine go wonder how that affected them when that happened or when that person said that thing or when somebody heaped this shit on them about something so infuriatingly stupid I'm like you guys are just the most incredible community members who have done so much for literally thousands and thousands of people I listen to your episodes and

I'm like feel like these guys are like sisters you know and there's so many women out there who would be like you know you don't know me but I know you and you've helped me so much you didn't have to do I think this is being a creative like I never put anything out into the community before and I've put a book out now and you don't realize you don't have to do this and I just wanted to say thank you for doing that it has actually touched a lot of people I want you to know we're so incredibly lucky like the community has created itself like the content we created the content and the community has created itself and that's the been the most powerful thing about life uncut is we've been having the conversations but the people who have like all of you guys who listen

all of you guys who are in the facebook group every single one of you who extend that conversation and have it in your own homes with your own friends or point more ears towards episodes that you think might help someone that's where this community has grown from and that is incredible but speaking of your book how to break up with friends if anybody wants to learn more about how to navigate friendships, how to maybe remove yourself from a toxic friendship, which we all know can be incredibly hard. We'll put the links to Dr. Hannah's book and where you can find her on Instagram in the show notes. Thanks, Hannah. You're an absolute legend. Stop it. You're the best. Thanks, guys.

You guys know we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our lowlight, the best and the worst of our week. If you're new, sometimes these are huge things. If you are have been here for a long time you know that sometimes these are very insignificant things either way where he'd have a two-minute complaint and a two-minute little grateful moment so you know you're you were just talking like this at the start we're doing our second suite and I quite liked it I think my voice is still a bit changing oh it's breathy yeah it's a bit breathy a bit sexy oh pandemic breathy finish it on a sex high that's the only sex I've been getting is my breathiness oh we can talk about your dating life on Thursday's episode if you like I feel like I

have a few questions yeah yeah okay hang around for that guys it's coming all right you want to kick it off what's your suck okay my suck for the week is that my suck for the week happened just then i got a phone call from daycare about 15 minutes ago saying that marley has a temperature and she needs to be picked up yes we have to cut the record short everyone knows that when you see your daycare's number flashing on your phone you're like oh what has happened something's gone down um so yeah but the reason why she has a fever today is because yesterday we had a birthday party for her so she had a great day we had a three-year-old birthday party there was so much food there was so much rosé it was so great the catering on the three-year-old's birthday i mean

like we're talking things like hot dogs and burgers but they were like fancy like french brioche buns oh yeah i had like four burgers only the best for marley may except four burgers were like the size of one burger because they were sliders they were sliders yeah yes it was so Marley's birthday was a week ago and like I told you all I lied to her and now she knows well I mean she doesn't know that her birthday was lied about but she got party bags we had pinatas we had all the things it was very very lovely and it's so nice like I mean I feel like a lot of our friends are from all different little walks of life like we've got friends from work we've got friends from daycare we've got friends from the park we've got work like oh that was weird

she just put me in the word friend category for anyone wondering what just happened I was weird that I said work twice and then I pointed at you again I was like we've got friends from work and then I work and then work and clearly I need some more friends after that episode no but it's nice to have everyone come together and for everyone to be able to meet each other before we have the wedding as well because sometimes it's weird when you've got to do small talk and meet all these different people and it just was just the most beautiful day it It was a great day. Except that Marley was in a feral mood from the first moment that we left.

And usually when you do birthday parties or things like that for a three-year-old birthday party, you just spend all your time chasing children around. But I actually felt like I got to have at least one or two semi-decent conversations in there. I must admit, I had a little bit of jealousy FOMO when I wasn't allowed to do the piñata when all the kids were lining up. These are all two and three-year-olds, not even like a one-year-old in there. I was like, I wonder if any of the adults get to have a go.

It's been a while since I've piñata, but no, it was a really lovely day. what is your sweet no what is your suck britney three years running laura my suck would be uh yesterday i just had i've only just gone back out into the world the last couple of days so like i feel like i'm finding my feet again i feel like i'm bambi i spilt three coffees i got three coffees yesterday i spilt three coffees every single coffee one all down my clothes one somehow on my face one through my car and then one on the table in we're doing an interview all over my table all over the carpet I think you might need to go to the doctor's about that I was like what is happening but then I couldn't figure it out a few people wrote to me they're like you you literally

have COVID brain fog like it's a thing apparently for sometimes a week sometimes two weeks sometimes three weeks some people have it long COVID but it's like you actually maybe it's what the same the equivalent of baby brain I don't know but apparently it's a bit of a thing where your brain still doesn't function so that's I'm going to use this for a while every time I make a mistake What was your excuse before COVID then? Nothing. But I will use this for as long as I can hold on to it. And what was your highlight for the week?

I'm going to rattle off a few. I'm going to go rogue. It's a great week to be alive. We just did a really cool photo shoot this morning, Laura and I. We never actually do anything together, but we went and we had some fun. We've got some things to announce in the coming weeks. So that was really fun. We have something very exciting to announce on Friday.

And we're announcing that with the photo we took at the photo shoot today. that was what and that and then we have been teasing this for a little while but it's coming out on friday and we're so excited we can't wait to share it with you it'll be on our instagrams on friday so make sure you keep your eyes out and we yeah we just can't wait it's a long time coming but we just cannot wait to finally share it with you so that's that's definitely a sweet another sweet is laura and i are both going on holiday this coming friday so we've got one more episode coming out next week and then we're going to have a few sneaky weeks off we're both going over to Bali. We're going to have a very relaxed, we're not going together. Like we're going to

Bali, but we're like having a break. We're going to the same country, but we're just like not seeing each other. Laura's like, no, we are not. I don't want to see you. I'm like, don't come at me on my holiday. My work friend. Work friend, stay away. We're not working. No, but we're both independently going to Bali, but that's really exciting. And then my third suite, cause I've got three this week. Okay. That is 100% cheating. You can save one for next week. No, it's too late. oh I could but I've got the Thor premiere tonight so Thor's Australian premiere so I'm really excited to yeah get dressed up and go out again and try and feel like semi-normal again is this when you're gonna go and try and rub yourself on Liam Hemsworth is that what's gonna happen

I'm wondering if he's there I'm like how supportive are the family of each other I really be there will he be rubbable against approach against my genitals against my genitalia anyway guys that is it from us we hope that you enjoyed the episode we know it was a really long one and a biggie for you today but there were so many things that we really wanted to cover and we love making it so we love talking so here we are if you made it all the way to the end please keep your ask uncuts coming in to life uncut podcast instagram also your accidentally unfiltered confessionals any story that you think we would want to know or you think that is funny and also your ask uncut aftermaths if we have ever done an ask uncut on you or a

friend or you know and there is something that we can follow up we really want to know about it so if you can send those in put ask uncut follow up or aftermath or whatever you want and then we can bring you some more of those episodes and don't forget to tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the love because oh my god you just did it for the first time we love you just are a spanner in the works We'll be right back.