emotions

Some Things to Remember When a Friendship Ends

Health & Lifestyle

Over the years, I’ve had many friendships. Some fleeting, some deeply rooted that have brought calm and joy to my life, and others that taught me lessons I didn’t know I needed. As the saying goes, people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime, and I’m grateful for the experience of all three. I’ve crossed paths with incredible people, shared countless memories with friends, old and new, and hold close a few that I know are here for the long haul. Recently, I came across a podcast episode that offered some real insight on the end of friendships, and it inspired me to reflect on my own.

I felt compelled to write this post after recalling a long‑standing friendship that unraveled years ago in a single afternoon. One social media post and a few short text exchanges later, and suddenly, years of shared history were over. To be honest, the cracks had been forming for a while; the post just sped up what was already on its way. Looking back, I realize that friendships sometimes drift long before they break, and that moment of rupture is often just the point when both people finally admit, realize, or come to terms with it. That experience, although sudden, yet inevitable, reminded me why it’s worth pausing to consider what really matters when a friendship ends. While my close friend circle is small and one that I hope to keep for a lifetime, here are some things I’ve learned.

Presented by Life Kit with Marisa Franco (source)

Introduction Summary

  • Adult friendships require time, effort and attention
  • Losing a friendship you’ve invested in can hurt deeply
  • Friendship grief is layered and complicated
  • Loss of a close friend can feel like losing a part of yourself

Sometimes things just fizzle out

  • No one wanted the friendship to end but life gets busy and goes on
  • The friendship wasn’t intentionally maintained
  • Losing friendships is a normal part of growing and moving through life

Make the unsaid, said

  • Friendship conflict is hard
  • Small things can accumulate overtime leading to wanting to end the friendship before addressing the problem
  • Sooner intervention could save a friendship
  • Healthy friendships have mutuality- both parties are thinking about each others needs
    • Responsiveness: the degree to which you’re willing to meet someone’s needs
  • Wanting to withdraw or contact a friend less is a sign a conversation needs to be had
    • Reframe conflict- when a friendship is valued, conflicts will be addressed rather than pulling away
    • Having open conflict is linked to deeper intimacy when conflict is done in an empathic way
    • Ask a friend what’s going on if you feel they’re pulling away
Photo by Liza Summer 

It’s normal to feel grief

  • If things aren’t addressed directly it can trigger ambiguous loss– we can’t process our grief because we don’t understand why it happened (humans are meaning-making people)
  • Strategies for being ghosted by a friend:
    • Resist internalizing it – “It must be me”
    • Remember the great qualities and friendships that you do have
    • Trust that not all your friends will hurt you in that same way
  • You grieve part of yourself and identity when a friendship ends
    • The loss of the person you were in that friend’s company
  • Friendships are ambiguous- friends can have different models or expectations than you do

Find ways to express through emotions

  • Ask yourself what’s different now with a friendship
  • Reflect on how you were or are in that friendship
  • Give yourself a fresh perspective when you enter into new friendships without fear or a protective state
  • Spend time processing your grief and emotions rather than distracting or disengaging from them

Be kind to yourself along the way

  • Don’t view a friendship ending as a template for how others could end
  • Acknowledge the beauty in the friendships you do have
  • Lean on the friendships that you do have as a reminder for what healthy connection looks like; keep one painful ending from defining how you see all friendships
  • Hold onto an image of friendship within the ones that remain that is rooted in the love and care
Photo by Helena Lopes

Resources:

Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — And Keep — Friends by Marisa Franco

WEBSITE DISCLAIMER

This website is provided only for informational purposes and not intended to be used to replace professional advice, treatment or professional care. Always speak to your physician, healthcare provider or pediatrician if you have concerns about your own health or the health of a child.

Understanding Envy: A Path to Self-Love

Health & Lifestyle, Self-Regulation

“Whatever I am, that I want to understand.” – Krishnamurti

We live in a time where we are so bombarded with content that it’s overwhelming. It has become so easy to access the lives of others through posts and reels that it can lead to playing the comparison game- with celebrities, our friends and even people who we don’t even know. We might think to ourselves, “Why can’t I have what they have… look like that… be like that?,” and a feeling of envy might begin to set in.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and listening lately and this topic presented itself to me in many different ways that I decided to write about it. Envy is a common human emotion; one that I admit I have felt at times.

Envy is one of those emotions that we often try to silence but it tends to creep up quietly. When it does, we may feel ashamed, small, or even a little unpleasant inside- especially when we are aware of it. But what if envy isn’t something to suppress or hide from, instead something to listen to? What if envy is a whisper from the parts of us still waiting to be seen, nurtured, and loved?

Photo by Felicity Tai

Envy as a Signal

Envy is often viewed as a bad emotion to experience. Something to push down, pray away, or deny altogether. But envy, like any emotion, has a message. It often arises not because we’re inherently bitter or ungrateful, but because there’s a longing in us that feels unmet.

Envy says: “I see something beautiful, and I wish I believed I could have it too.”

That wish might be about someone else’s confidence, relationships, body, creativity, or even their wealth. But underneath the longing is often a deeper ache and a feeling that we’re somehow not enough or can’t achieve what we desire.

The Psychology Behind Envy

Psychologically, envy stems from comparison. We measure ourselves against others and feel we come up short. When we see others achieving or embodying something we value, but don’t believe we can attain, we experience envy.

But this reaction is less about the other person and more about our inner landscape.

Envy doesn’t just say, “I want what they have.”
It says, “I don’t believe I can have that.”
Or worse, “I don’t believe I’m worthy of it.”

When We Don’t Love Ourselves

Here’s where the connection to self-love becomes clear. When we’re rooted in self-worth, another person’s shine doesn’t feel like a spotlight on our shortcomings. But when our self-love is fragile or conditional, someone else’s success can feel like evidence that we’re not doing enough, not being enough, or will never be enough.

When we don’t feel secure in who we are:

  • We interpret someone’s beauty as our own inadequacy
  • We see others’ joy and feel more alone
  • We hear someone praised and feel like we’ve fallen into the background

It’s not that we wish them harm. It’s that we secretly fear we’ve been left behind.

Transforming Envy Through Self-Love

The antidote to envy isn’t pretending it doesn’t exist. It’s compassion. Not just toward others, but toward ourselves. Self-love doesn’t make us immune to comparison, but it softens the sting. It allows us to admire someone without collapsing into self-doubt. It turns envy into insight.

“They can shine, and so can I.”

With self-love, we remember that someone else’s gifts don’t cancel out our own. There’s enough beauty, success, joy, and opportunity to go around. We don’t need to compete, we need to connect. When you feel envy, try congratulating the person you admire. Practicing celebration, even when it’s hard, rewires your inner story from scarcity to abundance.

From Comparison to Compassion

If envy shows up for you, as it does for all of us, try meeting it with curiosity instead of judgment.

Here are a few gentle practices that can help:

Ask what envy is trying to show you

  • What do I admire in this person?
  • What does this reveal about my own desires?

Reframe the comparison

  • What if this person is showing me what’s possible for me too?

Affirm your own worth
Try repeating: “There is room for me. I am already enough. My path is unfolding in perfect timing.”

Reflect with honesty

  • Where am I not giving myself what I crave from others?
  • What’s one step I can take to support my own growth or healing?

Closing Thoughts: Envy as a Mirror

Photo by Nadine Wuchenauer

Envy doesn’t make you bad, it makes you human. But it also makes you aware and awareness is a gift. When we approach envy with softness instead of shame, it becomes a mirror showing us where we still long to be seen and valued. It points us toward the parts of ourselves that are still waiting for our own approval, our own tenderness, our own love.

So the next time envy visits, take a breath. Instead of pushing it away, listen to what it’s asking for. Beneath that discomfort might be the beginning of your healing.

“When you find yourself looking at those around you wondering, ‘Why can’t my life be like that?,’ or ‘Why can’t I have that?,’ remember you don’t need anyone’s that to be happy. You need you to be happy. Because that is within you. And if you can’t see you, you’ll never see that.”

~ Najwa Zebian

Author of Welcome Home: A Guide to Building a Home for Your Soul

Additional Reading

Envy Is the Cancer of the Soul

WEBSITE DISCLAIMER

This website is provided only for informational purposes and not intended to be used to replace professional advice, treatment or professional care. Always speak to your physician, healthcare provider or pediatrician if you have concerns about your own health or the health of a child.

Let’s Talk About… Rejection

Health & Lifestyle

Presented by Jeremy Godwin, host of Let’s Talk About Mental Health (source)

I am no stranger to the feeling of rejection. Whether it be for a job or opportunity I applied for and was turned down from, a date that resulted in being friend zoned, or a text that went unacknowledged. I could go on and on about other moments of rejection in my life, but instead, I want to share a podcast episode I came across after looking for one specifically on this topic. Wondering why I was searching for information on rejection? Well, for one, it’s an uncomfortable feeling that I’m sure we all have experienced and don’t spend much time talking about. Secondly, one thing I know for certain is that we humans are social beings. We seek connection and a sense of belonging. When those needs are met with being rejected, left out, or unaccepted, it can leave us feeling deeply hurt. I know this because not only have I experienced it, but I’m sure it has been felt by many in the wake of the pandemic and the social isolation we experienced, or that was heightened for others. In this post, I will share some notes from the episode Let’s Talk About… Rejection with Jeremy Godwin, host of the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast. In this episode he shares a definition for what rejection is, why understanding its impact matters for good mental health, and how to deal with it.

What is Rejection?

  • Rejection is when another person avoids or ignores you
  • Related to words such as: abandonment, exclusion, shunning, desertion
  • Examples:
    • Being pushed away based on personal aspects that another person doesn’t like or agree with
    • Someone you’ve dated deciding not to see you again
    • A friend deciding the friendship has run its course
    • A family member not agreeing with who you are
    • A work colleague excluding you
    • A million and one other scenarios . . .
  • Goes against our instinctive desire to belong, feel seen, valued, and respected as a human being
  • Can follow a major argument or can come out of nowhere
  • Results in confusion, anger, hurt, sadness, self-doubt
  • Rejection is painful and can activate insecurities, doubts and deepest fears
expressive multiethnic couple having conflict on street

Understanding the Impact of Rejection Matters

“As far as your brain is concerned, a broken heart is not so different than a broken arm.”

Naomi Eisenberger, PhD
  • People who routinely feel excluded have poorer sleep quality and their immune systems don’t function as well as those of people with strong social connections
  • Rejection can cause emotional and cognitive consequences
    • Social rejection increases anger, anxiety, depression, jealousy, sadness
    • Reduces performance on difficult intellectual tasks and can contribute to aggression and poor impulse control
  • Identifying what you’re feeling and taking action is essential
  • The pain of rejection is felt because we are hardwired to want to belong
  • See rejection as a sign that something needs to change, whether you want it to or not
  • Only you have control over what you do, say, feel and what happens next
  • Learn from rejection in order to grow

How to Deal with Feelings of Rejection

  • Feel What You Need to Feel
    • Strong feelings of rejection or sadness happen to us because we care
      • For example, an emotional connection such an intimate or family relationship, or,
      • Wanting approval at work or maintaining a reputation
    • Feelings and thoughts are not facts, but reflections of our emotional state and if our needs are being met (e.g., the need to be accepted)
    • There is no right or wrong when it comes to your emotions, and how you feel is how you feel
    • The only way through it is through it
    • Process and work through your feelings (e.g., with a counsellor or therapist)
crop ethnic psychologist writing on clipboard during session
  • Remind Yourself It’s Not Personal
    • Hard to do when it feels personal
    • When someone rejects you it is about them and their choices
      • For example, the other person is fearful about a relationship moving too quickly and they’re not ready for that, or,
      • A family member set in their ways and not willing to accept others as they are
  • You May Never Know Why
    • Rejection can come with no warning or a surface level explanation
    • Closure is not a given
  • Healthy and Positive Relationships
    • Spending time with people you have healthy and positive connections with can lift mood
    • Positive social interactions can release opioids which give you a natural mood boost, such as with exercise
    • Seek healthy relationships or lean into the ones you already have
      • Take time for yourself and spend it with supportive people
  • Journaling
    • Can help to get emotions out
photo of person holding cup

Sometimes rejection in life is redirection.

Affirmations for Moving On by Ashley Diana

Rejection hurts, but it doesn’t define me.

I’m OK with rejection. It means I took a chance. I took a risk. I stood up for myself.

Rejection simply means that that thing is no longer meant for me.

I’m OK with being led in a different direction.

I happily accept that they were the wrong direction.

Source: Reframing Rejection: Affirmations for Moving On! Don’t Let Rejection Keep You Down

Let’s get comfortable talking about rejection.

What are some ways you have dealt with rejection?

Share them in the comments.

👇🏾

WEBSITE DISCLAIMER

This website is provided only for informational purposes and not intended to be used to replace professional advice, treatment or professional care. Always speak to your physician, healthcare provider or pediatrician if you have concerns about your own health or the health of a child.