Episode No. 19
Where to listen:
What Inspired this Episode:
I had this idea to talk about friendship since February but due to burnout and me wanting to have a well-researched episode, I decided to put this off. The inspiration behind this podcast episode stemmed from my desire to explore various aspects of relationships during February, which I had designated as a month focused on interpersonal connections. As part of this theme, I wanted to delve into our relationships with others, particularly friendships.
The topic of loneliness and its increasing prevalence in our society caught my attention. While it's easy to attribute this trend to the digital age and our reliance on technology, I believed there were deeper, more nuanced factors at play. This led me to investigate how certain social dynamics and categorizations might be contributing to a lack of genuine connections.
After listening to the podcast, scroll down and read the additional content on "The Pressure to Match Energy". This text expands on the themes discussed in the episode and offers further insights into the complexities of modern friendships and social interactions.
Topics explored:
How to maintain friendships with different energy levels?
What are "everything friends" vs. "category friends"?
Tips for authentic friendships in the digital age
Why is matching energy in friendships problematic?
How to set boundaries in friendships without guilt?
Understanding different levels of friendship: A guide
Combating loneliness: Building genuine connections
Wellness tips for introverts in social situations
Balancing personal energy and social expectations
How to navigate friendships as an introvert or extrovert?
Personal development: Embracing authenticity in relationships
Overcoming pressure to match others' energy in friendships
Wellness strategies for maintaining diverse friendships
Why categorizing friendships can improve your social life
Personal growth through understanding friendship dynamics
Episode Description:
Loneliness is on the rise and have you ever stopped to think "why"? It is easy to write off our lack of connection as a result of technology (aka the digital age), but Lay hypothesizes it is more than simply that. In today's episode, we cover intent conversations such as "Basic" vs "Not like other girls", and "High Maintenance" friends vs "Low Maintenance" friends, and how those conversations create a deficit in having genuine connections. Additionally, we are including a list of considerations when it comes to making friends so we can reflect on what truly contributes to loneliness. Sometimes it's not about people being good or bad friends because that is subjective, but it's important to figure out the right friends for you!
Also since the full reading was not included here is the details on the Dragon spirit card:
SEEING ONE'S MOST TRUE SELF, BALANCING THE EGO
The Dragon sees everything. Its essence has been with us since before our first breath and will be there at our last. It watches us navigate the external world as well as our inner world.
When Dragon energy is awakened, we are courageous, visionary, and can easily drop into witness consciousness. It is almost as if we are traveling with a great friend inside of ourselves. When we look in the mirror, deep into our eyes, we may even glimpse the "self" behind the "self," the one who is watching us. This is the power of the Dragon breathing transformative fire into every cell of our bodies. Witnessing this omnipotent energy, even for a brief moment, helps us surrender and let go.
We let the Dragon guide us. We hop on its back for a ride, and as we traverse even the most difficult terrain, the Dragon's eyes see beauty everywhere. It is said that if a yogi does not see beauty in the world, their Agni is dim. Agni is described as"inner fire" or "sacred intelligence." May even just the mention of the Dragon stir the embers of intelligence within you.
The subtle energy of the Dragon lives at the navel center, in the Manipura chakra. Manipura translates to "the city of hidden gems" and behind its gates burns the fire of our transformation and digestion. The sages believe the health of the fire at the navel center is what governs our ability to clearly "see" both the inner and outer dimensions.
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Section | Timestamp | Notes |
Introduction / Why I want to talk about this | 00:00 | -Loneliness epidemic
-The struggle to make friends
-what influences loneliness
-friendships based on circumstances
|
Social media’s influence on Friendship beliefs | 05:50 | -Basic (Girly/ soft girls) vs "I'm not like other girls" (bruh/ cool girls) aka creating this or that culture
- High-maintenance friend vs Low-maintenance friend
|
Things to consider when determining a quality friendship | 12:37 | -Availability -Communication type -Activities -Time of day -Personal Goals/ Ambitions |
My friendship experience | 18:03 | -Not Grounded place in my life - Maintaining connections as an adult -Never actively played a role in selecting friendships -Learning to create friendship standards |
Card Pull | 22:09 | *The entire reading is in the description* |
What I'm grateful for | 23:40 | -The change of season |
BONUS CONTENT:
The Pressure to Match Energy
Coming up with this topic was difficult because before I decided to dedicate time to creating bonus content for each episode I would create posts to just relate. So far I have written about: Creating your standards for friendship, signs you’ve outgrown your friendship, and just thoughts on friendship. Friendship is one of my favorite topics in terms of social wellness because I highly value it because friends can be more family than some family members but we don’t give it as much energy as our other relationships.
So I asked one of my friends if there was anything that she thinks is not spoken about enough in terms of friendship. Her initial response was essentially about guilt so I asked further about it since there are a lot of ways guilt could be a topic of discussion within friendship - to my surprise, she explained the guilt around matching energy.
I thought this would be an interesting topic since the podcast episode was about genuine connection. Matching energy refers to the social practice of adjusting one's behavior, enthusiasm, or emotional state to align with others in social situations. It's often seen as a way to create rapport and facilitate connections. For example, responding with equal excitement to someone's good news or adopting a calm demeanor when interacting with a more reserved person.
While matching energy can help in creating initial bonds, it can also lead to inauthentic interactions if taken to extremes. Genuine connections often arise from being true to oneself while still being responsive and empathetic to others' emotional states.
To explore this concept further and understand its impact on different personality types, let's delve into how introverts, extroverts, and those in between experience the pressure to match energy in social situations.
Introverts, Extroverts, and everyone in between
Even though my friend mentioned not being able to have the energy to match people’s energy, I realized that would limit the topic so I wanted to angle the conversation through the view of personality.
I was listening to a podcast I enjoy: A Better You by Fernanda Ramirez. It was her most recent episode called “You are never too much”. I didn’t get to finish the episode before writing this (I have about 25 minutes), but I wanted to share the 2 things that stuck out to me in her content so far.
Her view on introvert content in media: this is one thing she mentioned briefly but what she was talking about was how online there was an explosion of introvert and solitude content and how she wants to make a series focusing on tales as an extrovert. I just found that interesting because it makes sense why so much content would be geared towards the introvert experience.
Content creation is a passion typically introverts gravitate towards because it is something a person can do within their own space and for socially anxious introverts it creates a space for them to share their thoughts that they typically don’t in a social setting
Even though introverts are highlighted in digital space, extroverts are generally more favored especially in in-person social settings like if you work in marketing, PR, sales, Human Resources, management, etc. (Honestly in most settings) and people who are introverts have to essentially mask how drained they are for their own benefit until they could be in their own space again at the end of the day.
In theory, the pandemic did make people think more about that aspect of their character. Extroverts had a hard time while introverts felt more energized at the time. I think the shift went from more adventurous content to solitude content to teach people how to be comfortable with themselves so they don’t always need to fill it with other people, activities, or any distractions to not feel so lonely.
Her experience of having to lower her energy to not appear as excited. She talks about how she sometimes experiences people who try to be more nonchalant. She mentions how she is aware some people are naturally more calm as a personality, but some people force themselves to pretend to appear to not care like if they are experiencing something out of the ordinary. She goes on to say that you will never be too much for the right person (too emotional, too forward, too expressive etc.)
As someone who is more an introvert-leaning Ambivert (I like to think of if more of a spectrum), I have felt the feelings of being too much for people while simultaneously feeling like not enough at the same time. My introverted friend mostly feels not enough, like she isn’t doing enough to match her friends’ energies (she is doing enough), which creates the guilt feeling.
So I have a theory that both sides feel pressure to match other people's energy, resulting in no one feeling they are truly being authentic in their expressions. A big part of forming genuine connections is the ability to be authentic. So knowing all sides of the conversation is a great starting point, especially with our generational cultural obsession to match energies. There are a multitude of reasons people try to match energy (mostly as a survival instinct). However, when you make a habit out of it, to be socially conditioned, you are risking creating dynamics that down the line will be draining. When you set that expectation that you have to change where you at to be with people out of fear, it sets you up to keep having to shift which may drain you by either making you want to retreat to be with yourself or avoid that person.
We do not need to be at another person’s level to create a genuine connection.
Everything friendship vs category friends
A big reason we struggle to with being authentic in friendships and feeling the need to match energy (whether it means to give energy we don’t have or to lower our energy to not overwhelm others) is because a lot of times we have a vague definition of what it means to be a true friend or what a true friend looks like to us. For many years there were friendships I just wasn’t happy with and upon deeper reflection, it wasn’t necessarily about the person but more about my expectations of friendship. I would be upset at my friends for not supporting my creative endeavors because I saw my creations (my writing, my podcast, anything was doing on social media) as an extension of myself. It led to ego-centric thought bias and in my head it was like them not supporting that aspect of me meant they didn’t care. My way of thinking clearly has evolved because expecting my friends to support all aspects of me was honestly making me more miserable.
Yes, I do still have my personal standards for what I look for in a friend ( I still think knowing what you look for in friendship is just as important as knowing what I look for in romantic relationships), but I can acknowledge that there are levels of friendship and my standard for friendship won’t be applicable to see if I can genuinely connect to them.
There are friends you can do mostly everything with and talk about everything with, but that is rarer than having friends that fall into different. Some friends you have because your parents/ families were close, some friends you have because you went to the same schools, some friends you have from a shared hobby, some friends you have because you work in the same industry, etc.
I believe what allows people to be everything friends is if they are morally aligned, have similar personalities (For instance: that close friend and I are both cancer risings; She is INFP while I am INFJ), have mutual respect for where each other is at in life, having hobbies in common, similar communication styles and habits and generally try to understand each other. There are clear differences between us and our interests, but we can go from talking about AI, music, books, people we knew to theories about life and death, our view on what would make the world a better place, etc. We can also be doing different activities in a shared space but not feel pressure to shift our energy or get offended when we need a second to recharge.
Being an everything friend has so many specifics to make it possible, but more likely you are going to meet people who experience life much differently than you. That is why even though it seems harsh, having categories for friends makes it easier to not be disappointed and also know there are different levels to friendship in the first place and not labeling everyone the same (acquaintances, friends, good friends, close friends, best friends and life long friends). The standard I have created for my friendships was mostly for close friends and best friends (lifelong friends I feel like it is more about the history and the maintenance throughout the years).
Understanding these different levels of friendship and categorizing our relationships accordingly can help us manage our expectations and energy more effectively. This approach allows us to appreciate each friendship for what it is, rather than feeling pressured to "match energy" or expecting every friend to fulfill all roles in our lives.
What it means to meet people where they are at
I feel like we misinterpreted the phrase “meet people where they’re at” to think energy shifting is the way to go. Energy shifting does help people to bond and is essentially a survival tactic, but when we constantly do it, it leads to a feeling of inadequacy and can feel like we a constantly betraying ourselves. Sometimes we do this unconsciously but practicing mindfulness can help protect your energy and prevent you from feeling guilt or shame about your energy.
A better approach is to make space for other people to express where they are, so you can make the conscious choice of how to manage the differences. For instance, if you are the low-energy person in the situation and the higher-energy person is in a phase of needing more social attention, be honest about the way you can show up for them if you can at all. Set times a week/ a month where you have scheduled communication and ask if you can do another format of communication if being in person is too much. If you are the higher energy person and you realize that when you are around a person who is in lower energy and doesn’t know how to be there for them without feeling a shift, think about ways you can do something kind for someone without sacrificing yourself. This could look like making open when letters, a care package, dropping off a meal for someone, etc. listening to someone is not the only way to be there for a person who is having a hard time.
This is about understanding peoples’ needs and coming up with a way to meet each other in the middle. Compromise is coming to a fair understanding that benefits all parties involved. Both parties have to be willing to say what they need and listen to understand the other parties (instead of just listening to respond).
Introverts may feel guilty for not having the energy to match their friends' social levels, while extroverts might experience shame for being too expressive or excited. However, it's crucial to understand that meeting people where they are doesn't mean changing oneself. In fact, constantly altering your natural energy levels can hinder the formation of genuine connections. Authenticity is key to building meaningful relationships, and embracing our true selves allows for more honest and fulfilling interactions. If someone isn’t for you, you’ll find out faster by just being you instead of trying to mirror them.
I hope you enjoyed this post and found it interesting. Also if you like my content it would mean the world to me if you would also subscribe to my YouTube channel, my Pinterest, and my TikTok account. On YouTube, I have the most inspirational content from Lifestyle Design posts to Digital "open when..." letters to boost your moods. I also keep a copy of my podcast episodes (which is also available on Spotify). I decided that I am honoring what feels right to me and continuously working on building the life of my dreams and helping others do the same. Don’t forget to share this if you feel inspired and I will have more content for you soon.
Until next time butterflies 🦋
Xoxo,
Lay 💋
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