BFF Not Forever | LAYC07

Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here so that we can pick up where we left off from Episode Six, where we were talking about the myth of work life balance, and why I believe that is a crock of BS.

I share my thoughts on how we as women have been set up to achieve try to achieve this balance. That is impossible, because we have a personal life filled with all kinds of aspirations and goals and responsibilities and complexities and relationships. And we have a professional life, where again, all of the same factors are involved. Yet, the truth is, we only have one, one a whole life as a woman to live.

And how when we stand back and look at it from that perspective, and realize that we're the only one who can decide how we apportion our energy, and how we allocate the time and the attention in those two areas. That's how we design and direct the ideal life that we want, the one that we desire, the one that we deserve.

So I like to talk to you more about that, because I have had decades of learning and failing, and learning and failing, and learning and failing on how to create a whole cohesive life, as a working mother, as a working wife, as a business owner, as a grandmother, as a serial wife. We'll talk about that in another episode! And as a serial entrepreneur - coming back to that again later, we'll definitely do that.

And I'd love to hear your experiences around how you figure it out that magic formula to create the right balance in your life. And when things get off balance, out of kilter, how to get them back.

I also indicated that at the end of Episode Six that I was going to talk about one of the aspects of achieving balance or restoring balance for me is my BFFs; Best Friends Forever. And if you've followed me at all, you know that vitamin G is what I describe as the most important supplement for my health, that's “G” for girlfriends - Vitamin G, and that I know how critically important it is for all of us to be very conscious about the circle that we gather around us, the friends that we choose, that we curate, and network and nurture, and how important that is to the success of our personal and professional happiness and wellbeing.

That's the positive upside of it all. There are always some other sides. You know, as my friend Jackie Ulmer of Street Smart Wealth says, life is 50/50. There's the good and the bad, the Ying and the Yang. And most of the time in my life and I have been blessed to have amazing BFFs over my six plus decades, who I credit for making me the woman that I am today. But a couple of times, a few times in my life, I have found out sadly, that the relationship I considered as one of my treasured BFFs, wasn't at all, and that she wasn't intended to be in my life at all, or for long, or forever.

I also want to share my observation around why does that hurt so much? Why does it feel even to this day a little tough to talk about, and to talk about and admit publicly that I have been dumped? I have been kicked to the curb. I have been used and abused by a few people that I thought were true friends. And why didn't I see that coming?

And when I started - if I'm honest with myself - to see the signs, to get the warning indicators, to see some clues, that this wasn't the relationship that I deserved to have in my life, why didn't I take charge and bring that relationship to a close? Before I was the one who got dumped? Why did she break up with me first?

Well, and maybe, just because I am so gosh, darn determined to make it all work. And that positivity runs, there's a thick vein of that, through my whole body. And people tease me of being Pollyanna and the Chief Cheerleading Officer, and I think, “You know what, if we just try, we're going to get through this!”

I have a lot of grace for people who are going through difficult times in their own lives, to, you know, give them a couple of free passes for a while. But there does come a point, as an intelligent adult, that you have to say, “This is not for me to fix. This is not for me to tolerate. And this is not the relationship that I deserve.”

So if you are feeling that you are in a friendship, where there are indicators that those are the situation for you, then I encourage you to check back with me and what we'll talk about later, how to bring closure to a relationship in a way that is sensitive and kind to both sides, but successful in closing that relationship.

So for me, the observation has been that having been divorced several times, (that's in my book by the way) that in in the breakdown of a marriage or romantic relationship, there's a period of time almost like pre-grieving process. I guess, where as they “the blush goes off the bloom”, where you start to fall out of love with each other, you begin to see the flaws, you escalate your irritation factor, you begin to build your justifications of why this relationship cannot continue, will not be able to overcome whatever is the issues between you. And that it would be a better, no matter how painful it feels at the moment, but that it would be better for all concerned, if you terminate the relationship, wish each other well and move on in your lives.

That is a process, and it takes time. And it's certainly a way that I think that you can come to terms and to do some of the work that you need to do to wish that relationship Adieu.

In the case of my BFF relationships, where I have been divorced by a girlfriend. I didn't want to see that that romance was over. And I mean the romance in that I admire them for their capabilities and for their, you know, their aspirations or their leadership in growth and professional and personal development. And that I really thought our friendship was based on mutual trust and admiration and the desire to “Lift As We Climb with each other.

So that's why I feel it was such a blow for me when I didn't see the signs at all, because they were so clearly hidden or perhaps, maybe I wasn't invested enough in the friendship.

I haven't thought about that till just now. Perhaps, I should go back and examine where I was in that friendship. Perhaps I really was already abdicating my responsibilities as a BFF myself. But to come to the end of a relationship and not be able to, to give closure and say, that was great. The time that we had together, I'm sorry, that you felt that you had to end our relationship in such a cold manner, calculating manner, instead of just having a chat with me and saying that you have other friends that are more appropriate and more supportive for where you are in your own life right now. And that although we'll be friends, we just won't be BFF's and to wish me success.

So, ladies, I don't know if I have this figured out yet. I'm still working on it. But I can tell you that in thinking about this, I have realized that I felt anger and I felt frustration, I felt grief and I felt sadness. I felt a disconnection because the other aspect of terminating a BFF friendship, just like in a marriage, there are usually shared relationships, shared activities. And in my case, in the one of the examples I'm thinking of, there was some shared mutual business relationships. And that made it a little extra awkward. So, I'm going to leave this kind of open for your thoughts and when you are ready, please give me some comments and feedback. And let's pick this up and talk about it further and see if we can't come up with a good process to help us move on and move up to new and better BFFs when one is no longer forever.

Thank you. Get out there and love your girlfriends. Bye