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Welcome to a Curious Mind podcast.
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So for today's episode, I'm going to talk about um the experience that is making friends kind of like in your twenties, like late teens and twenties.
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I've always found like having friends and being around people and socializing to be something that I really prioritize.
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I find it extremely important, and I think that it's super like healthy to have a variety of friends because I think that each person that you're friends with brings out a different side in you, and that's why like it's super important to invest in and to look after friendships because um you know you might be going through different phases of your lives at different times of your lives, but I think that even so, like ensuring that you stay in touch and you keep you know, you like you look after those connections means that you learn from each other, you know, like I might go through something, and then in five years you might go through something, and I can kind of help you through that, or we might be going through the same thing at the same time.
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And I've I've always been like so.
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I've always placed a real priority on like making sure that I have friends in my life and being as honest and as truthful with those that I can trust, and um but always being open to having you know new people in my life because you really don't know, like you really don't know what you may like get to know from someone new in your life, you know, like so many people I've touched on this various times now, but like every single person has their own unique concoction of like life experience, family dynamic, cultural background, um, career background, interest changes, political changes, um, political beliefs.
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Every single person you meet will be slightly different depending on like what has happened in their life, and so I think they're like surrounding yourself with a variety of people is so fucking important.
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Um, and I don't think that I've quite found my like my way of like making friends, but I'm someone that like I'm very loyal and I am very um like the minute that I class you as a friend, you know, I have like I really hold myself to a very high standard, but then subsequently I hold you to a very high standard, and sadly in the my past, like I have expected potentially too much from friends because I have um you know thought like no, I would do this for them and I would go to these lengths for them, so why aren't they doing the same for me?
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You know, why are they not showing me the same respect?
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Why are they not doing you know all of these things that I would do at the drop of the hat for?
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Like they're so selfish, they don't prioritize me, and it's therefore led to me removing and cutting off many people in my life that potentially today I would not have removed from my life for that reason, you know.
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Um, and and that's been a really difficult thing for me to navigate because it's led to me feeling quite insecure when it means that I meet a new person and I start to get really excited at like a potential new friendship.
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Um, because I'm like, oh god, like you know, uh, is this gonna be something that I really really can, you know, give myself into and really, you know, can I really trust them and can I really, you know, and and so many like expectations would come up for me, and I would really, really place them all on these people, these poor people that really didn't know me from Adam, like don't know what it is that I need because I also would not communicate these things.
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And so for a good few years of my life, like I was really trying to make certain friendships fit and make it certain situations work, and it wasn't working, and um it's not at all to say that like the people were bad people, or you know, it was just we were we were very different.
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Um but I was reflecting on this today with my best friend Holly.
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Um, how like now that I'm in like my mid-20s, I feel like the people that I'm that I meet, the people that I surround myself with um of a similar age to me, people seem more settled in themselves, people seem less bothered about trying to look cool or like fit a certain like image, um less bothered about proving themselves and showing themselves to other people, and so I feel as though you are met with more authentic people.
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Now I'm really generalizing, and I know I'm really generalizing one because like not all 25-year-olds are like have found themselves in a more authentic, and two, I'm probably I probably experience this more because I am at that place in my life, like I'm now reaching that point in my life, and so I see that in other people.
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But this is my experience.
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Um I am definitely finding that like I'm able to have more genuine and authentic conversations with people because I feel like people are less afraid of looking stupid or like being like rejected because they've kind of already found themselves and therefore they found their tribe.
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Um, and that's not to say that their tribe is like just a certain group of people, like it's that group of people, but also other people that they're open to getting to know, and it has been so nice, and like I'm really generalizing, and it isn't like this all the time, and I really don't think that like um you know, I don't think that it is always like this, but it's very reassuring the more I go out and the more I speak to people generally, and the more I get to know new people, and the more I see my current friendships like grow and strengthen and like change, but also like we change together, and therefore we're growing similarly, you know.
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Um, the more that I see it happen, the more reassuring it is when I like think back to when I was much younger and just extremely insecure and really worried about like you know, not having enough friends and not looking cool enough, and like not having you know a certain amount of people coming to my birthday parties, and like um always worried about like what it is that people would think about me.
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I would also make room for people in my life.
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So this is kind of like a weird like juxtaposition to the earlier point I made where it was like I would cut people out of my life that weren't like quite giving me what it was that I needed because I was expecting a lot from them, but at the same time I was making space and making room for people in my life whom I thought were like you know good friends and important to me, um, because like you know, we shared certain experiences and maybe we bonded over certain situations, and then like I felt as though like I was really I could I wasn't growing uh in line with them, and so but I kind of didn't want to like lose the friendship because of like a strange attachment that I had with these people, and then like I would be less and less authentic to myself because I wanted to ensure like I wanted to keep the friendship because like god forbid I was to lose the friendship, but I was losing myself within the friendships, and like when I cut those people out of my life, it was really lonely, it was really, really lonely.
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Like Florence Given speaks about this, like she went two years without having a single friend, without a single friend, and like you know, that was her experience, and she did that because she was she had created and and cultivated a life, I think I assume that was not aligned to the person that she was then changed into, and so she kind of cut people out because she didn't want to make space for for people like that, they were taking up space that was sacred to her.
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Um, and I guess like my experience was somewhat similar, and I've also spoken to a really close friend of mine who is one of the most authentic people.
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Layla is her name.
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She's one of the most authentic people I have ever met in my life.
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She's so incredible.
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And like I spoke to her about that.
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Like, how is it that you keep your authenticity and you've not been so afraid of like being rejected by people and being like shunned, you know, and being lonely, you know.
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Like I used to hate the idea of like having a Friday night free, you know, not having any plans.
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And like, even if those plans were things that like really didn't bring me much joy or satisfaction when like sitting at home and watching a tea, like a movie with my parents or my dog, or like you know, a night for myself, like that probably would have brought me more joy, but in my mind, it was like a wasted Friday night because you know I'm I'm working the whole week and I need to make sure that I like let off some steam with my friends.
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But like what it was that they were prioritizing was not what I wanted to prioritize anymore.
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I was I just didn't it didn't feel right to me.
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It didn't feel right to me.
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Not to say that that was wrong, it just wasn't for me.
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But like making peace with that is really lonely because your whole life, like people come into your life and come out of your life, and your whole life starts to mould, right?
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Let's say like you've got like 15 friends, right?
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And so like your life is like this, and like you're seeing your friends like by the way, for the listeners, like I'm holding, like I'm almost holding up a ball that's kind of moving, and it's like you know, maybe the size of like a volleyball, and so like this ball, right?
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This volleyball is like full, and like you've got all of these people in your life, and you're having to like mould your life to make sure that you fit all of these people in, right?
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But the minute you start to remove those people, your ball and your life seems to get smaller, and like you you start to feel like shunned and exiled from society because that was your society, that was your community, and that isn't is not nice, like that's like that that literally like a that sends triggers like it um that sends triggers to like our survival brain of like you know you you cannot be alone, like being alone you won't survive, like you know, it's it's quite it's really difficult for us to reconcile with, and so like when you kind of create that smaller space right in your life, your life feels small, like let's say as small as a tennis ball, but your life is actually still the size of a volleyball, you've just got more space, and if you're discerning, and if you don't jump into new things with fear and with worry, and you jump into them with calm and with joy and with some certainty, you can't have all the certainty in the world because these things are new.
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It means that your life, the volleyball, is going to be so much more fulfilling.
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Like the people that come into your life will bring you so much more joy, you'll feel so much more aligned with yourself, you'll do things that you love like that make you love yourself more, and that's kind of where I'm at at the moment when it comes to making friends, is like I feel as though because I have in my past made the time and the space, although very painful and difficult, to sit with the space, and I've been very discerning with who I let into my space and like who I pay attention to, and like how much you know, and you know, again, I'm not like expecting too much from these people because they're also their own person, and I cannot expect them to completely change who they are to be a friend of mine, but at the same time knowing my limits, knowing my boundaries, knowing what it is that I'm deserving of when it comes to friends.
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I now like look at my circle of friends that's growing like day by day, and it's it brings me like it really, really warms my heart because I feel as though like I am really starting to create and like collate a group of people in my life that like I feel like I will have you know, I feel that I'm learning so much from and I enjoy so much their company and I laugh so much with them, and it's so like joyous because everyone is allowed to be themselves with each other, like we're all like we all accept each other for who we are rather than like this socially like acceptable image that maybe we sh we convince ourselves when we're younger is needed, and that is like I saw something too long ago that was like if you want to talk to somebody else, the way that you talk to yourself, like have conversations in have conversations similar to that those that you have in your mind with someone else, like those people exist because you exist, like you exist, you're real, you're real, you're a real person, which means that other people similar to you do exist, but you've just got to hold off and make sure there is space in your life for people that are similar to you in that way, and will be able to hold those kinds of conversations with you.
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It's so important that you take time to think about what it is that you would like from your life, the kind of person you would like to be, the kind of people you would like to surround yourself with.
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We aren't taught this, we're not taught this when we're younger, to be like, what because as well, these things change, right?
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This is another thing, like what you liked when you were 15 is gonna be different to what you like when you're 25.
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But I think that fundamentally, like, we are still very similar to who we were when we're much younger.
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Like, of course I'm different in many ways.
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Thank God I'm different.
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But I think that my heart and my essence is the same, and my heart and my essence has always yearned for the type of friends that I've got now in my life, which are just like do not take themselves seriously, goofy, fun, funny, um, kind-hearted, open, friendly, um, adventurous, creative, um, curious, like people.
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That's the kind of people I would always want to have surrounded myself with.
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They're the kind of people that's my tribe, that is who I want in my life, you know.
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Um, and I'm starting to cultivate that, you know, and it's not always been the case.
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Um, I've I've like, you know, just so that they they don't go unnoticed or unmentioned, like I've had like a small handful of friends that I have had throughout my whole life practically, whom I I very much value, and um I'm super grateful for that friendship, that the those friendships.
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Um, but like I'm now starting to see like it become more and more like fluid and like things are starting to flow more, and people are starting to meet each other, and I'm like, oh god, I I really vibe with you, like you're just someone that I really like, and I met you through this friend who I really like.
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I also love the idea of like trusting your friend's judgment.
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Like, whenever I meet my friend's friends, I'm like, you're good people because you're my friend's friend, you know.
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I think that's such a beautiful thing, and like I don't know, I don't know if like that's something that is somewhat dying because of like social media.
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Um, I don't know.
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I don't know if I'm quite convinced by that, but it's something that I'm so like I'm kind of newly experiencing, I would say.
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Um, and it's probably because and it's probably because I am more open-minded to um these these opportunities and these experiences, you know.
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I think that these changes and these um this kind of like it's like what I said a couple of episodes ago, like if you want change to happen, you need to do the changing.
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Like you need to be the first push.
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The minute that you start to change, things around you begin to change because the dynamic of your life has to change to accommodate to accommodate your change.
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Um, and that's what I'm finding.
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Um, and the reason I kind of wanted to talk about this is because like friends has been something that I have felt extremely insecure about throughout my life.
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Like I've always felt really, really like desperately wanted by people, and I wanted to be accepted by people, and I wanted people to like me, regardless of if I liked them or not, or regardless if of if like I really cared about what it was that they sort of thought about me, you know.
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I just thought I needed to care, and so you know, I found myself in many many situations surrounded by people that I really didn't feel as though like I connected to, and I felt like aligned with, but it was better to have them than nothing in my mind.
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Um but actually the less I've done that and the more I've allowed sort of myself to just show up as who I am in my most genuine way, and it has it has just it has meant that I have met some really beautiful, beautiful people as a result, and it has been really rewarding, but it's not always been that way.
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That's kind of the point of the episode, is like it's not always been like that.
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I've I've found myself many a time like oh my god, many a time like sat in a pub or in a bar or in a club.
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Don't really say in clubs, but it's found myself in a club.
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Um just like why am I here?
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Why am I spending my money and my time and buying these outfits and throwing on so much makeup and why am I sat here?
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Like who is it that I really want to be around?
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Like you know.
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I don't know, feeling feeling that way, if like I'm sure people can relate to me, like being somewhere and being like, why the fuck am I here?
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It's super good because it means that you're beginning to learn what it is that you want and need and like what it is that brings you joy and satisfaction, but on the other hand, it's like really if you don't if you don't wake up to it and you don't start to to to act on that, you can spend years of your life being like why am I here?
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Or like when you're sat on a table in a pub and you feel so lonely, you feel like everyone around you is like just on a whole other energy level to you.
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You're like, I literally people don't care if I was if I was here or if I wasn't, you know, like I don't know.
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I I really don't enjoy that that experience and that feeling.
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So yeah, I've just like recently just been really mindful of like what what is it that I would like and how would I like to show up and what kind of friend would I like to be, and therefore what kind of friend would I like to have?
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Um and that has meant that I've had to feel lonely.
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That's meant that I've had many a Friday, Saturday night, um, completely without any plans, and like you know, just sort of twiddling my th fingers and thumbs and doing things that make me happy, and then therefore I've found people that can do that with me or do things that make me happy as well, and that we both enjoy together.
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And um yeah, that's been really nice, you know.
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But yeah, yeah, that's been my experience.
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I wonder if people have a similar experience, if people watching this have a similar experience to me, um, or if they've always been really authentic to themselves, like that friend of mine, Layla.
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She's always been so authentic to herself, and it has also meant that she's had to be lonely in her life.
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But the friendships that she's got, the people in her life that she has are like family, they're like family to her, you know, they are the most important people in her life, and she is the most important person in theirs, you know, like it's a really beautiful exchange and connection.
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Um so yeah, you find your people, you will find your people.
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It just takes a little bit of time and it takes knowing yourself to know where to look.
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So yeah.
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Um, I want to do a few more of these because once again I'm kind of like talking to my younger self.
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Um and I really like these ones.
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So, anyway, I will see you again this time next week.
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Welcome to a Curious Mind podcast.
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So for today's episode, I'm going to talk about um the experience that is making friends kind of like in your twenties, like late teens and twenties.
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I've always found like having friends and being around people and socializing to be something that I really prioritize.
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I find it extremely important, and I think that it's super like healthy to have a variety of friends because I think that each person that you're friends with brings out a different side in you, and that's why like it's super important to invest in and to look after friendships because um you know you might be going through different phases of your lives at different times of your lives, but I think that even so, like ensuring that you stay in touch and you keep you know, you like you look after those connections means that you learn from each other, you know, like I might go through something, and then in five years you might go through something, and I can kind of help you through that, or we might be going through the same thing at the same time.
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And I've I've always been like so.
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I've always placed a real priority on like making sure that I have friends in my life and being as honest and as truthful with those that I can trust, and um but always being open to having you know new people in my life because you really don't know, like you really don't know what you may like get to know from someone new in your life, you know, like so many people I've touched on this various times now, but like every single person has their own unique concoction of like life experience, family dynamic, cultural background, um, career background, interest changes, political changes, um, political beliefs.
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Every single person you meet will be slightly different depending on like what has happened in their life, and so I think they're like surrounding yourself with a variety of people is so fucking important.
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Um, and I don't think that I've quite found my like my way of like making friends, but I'm someone that like I'm very loyal and I am very um like the minute that I class you as a friend, you know, I have like I really hold myself to a very high standard, but then subsequently I hold you to a very high standard, and sadly in the my past, like I have expected potentially too much from friends because I have um you know thought like no, I would do this for them and I would go to these lengths for them, so why aren't they doing the same for me?
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You know, why are they not showing me the same respect?
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Why are they not doing you know all of these things that I would do at the drop of the hat for?
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Like they're so selfish, they don't prioritize me, and it's therefore led to me removing and cutting off many people in my life that potentially today I would not have removed from my life for that reason, you know.
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Um, and and that's been a really difficult thing for me to navigate because it's led to me feeling quite insecure when it means that I meet a new person and I start to get really excited at like a potential new friendship.
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Um, because I'm like, oh god, like you know, uh, is this gonna be something that I really really can, you know, give myself into and really, you know, can I really trust them and can I really, you know, and and so many like expectations would come up for me, and I would really, really place them all on these people, these poor people that really didn't know me from Adam, like don't know what it is that I need because I also would not communicate these things.
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And so for a good few years of my life, like I was really trying to make certain friendships fit and make it certain situations work, and it wasn't working, and um it's not at all to say that like the people were bad people, or you know, it was just we were we were very different.
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Um but I was reflecting on this today with my best friend Holly.
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Um, how like now that I'm in like my mid-20s, I feel like the people that I'm that I meet, the people that I surround myself with um of a similar age to me, people seem more settled in themselves, people seem less bothered about trying to look cool or like fit a certain like image, um less bothered about proving themselves and showing themselves to other people, and so I feel as though you are met with more authentic people.
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Now I'm really generalizing, and I know I'm really generalizing one because like not all 25-year-olds are like have found themselves in a more authentic, and two, I'm probably I probably experience this more because I am at that place in my life, like I'm now reaching that point in my life, and so I see that in other people.
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But this is my experience.
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Um I am definitely finding that like I'm able to have more genuine and authentic conversations with people because I feel like people are less afraid of looking stupid or like being like rejected because they've kind of already found themselves and therefore they found their tribe.
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Um, and that's not to say that their tribe is like just a certain group of people, like it's that group of people, but also other people that they're open to getting to know, and it has been so nice, and like I'm really generalizing, and it isn't like this all the time, and I really don't think that like um you know, I don't think that it is always like this, but it's very reassuring the more I go out and the more I speak to people generally, and the more I get to know new people, and the more I see my current friendships like grow and strengthen and like change, but also like we change together, and therefore we're growing similarly, you know.
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Um, the more that I see it happen, the more reassuring it is when I like think back to when I was much younger and just extremely insecure and really worried about like you know, not having enough friends and not looking cool enough, and like not having you know a certain amount of people coming to my birthday parties, and like um always worried about like what it is that people would think about me.
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I would also make room for people in my life.
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So this is kind of like a weird like juxtaposition to the earlier point I made where it was like I would cut people out of my life that weren't like quite giving me what it was that I needed because I was expecting a lot from them, but at the same time I was making space and making room for people in my life whom I thought were like you know good friends and important to me, um, because like you know, we shared certain experiences and maybe we bonded over certain situations, and then like I felt as though like I was really I could I wasn't growing uh in line with them, and so but I kind of didn't want to like lose the friendship because of like a strange attachment that I had with these people, and then like I would be less and less authentic to myself because I wanted to ensure like I wanted to keep the friendship because like god forbid I was to lose the friendship, but I was losing myself within the friendships, and like when I cut those people out of my life, it was really lonely, it was really, really lonely.
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Like Florence Given speaks about this, like she went two years without having a single friend, without a single friend, and like you know, that was her experience, and she did that because she was she had created and and cultivated a life, I think I assume that was not aligned to the person that she was then changed into, and so she kind of cut people out because she didn't want to make space for for people like that, they were taking up space that was sacred to her.
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Um, and I guess like my experience was somewhat similar, and I've also spoken to a really close friend of mine who is one of the most authentic people.
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Layla is her name.
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She's one of the most authentic people I have ever met in my life.
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She's so incredible.
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And like I spoke to her about that.
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Like, how is it that you keep your authenticity and you've not been so afraid of like being rejected by people and being like shunned, you know, and being lonely, you know.
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Like I used to hate the idea of like having a Friday night free, you know, not having any plans.
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And like, even if those plans were things that like really didn't bring me much joy or satisfaction when like sitting at home and watching a tea, like a movie with my parents or my dog, or like you know, a night for myself, like that probably would have brought me more joy, but in my mind, it was like a wasted Friday night because you know I'm I'm working the whole week and I need to make sure that I like let off some steam with my friends.
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But like what it was that they were prioritizing was not what I wanted to prioritize anymore.
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I was I just didn't it didn't feel right to me.
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It didn't feel right to me.
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Not to say that that was wrong, it just wasn't for me.
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But like making peace with that is really lonely because your whole life, like people come into your life and come out of your life, and your whole life starts to mould, right?
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Let's say like you've got like 15 friends, right?
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And so like your life is like this, and like you're seeing your friends like by the way, for the listeners, like I'm holding, like I'm almost holding up a ball that's kind of moving, and it's like you know, maybe the size of like a volleyball, and so like this ball, right?
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This volleyball is like full, and like you've got all of these people in your life, and you're having to like mould your life to make sure that you fit all of these people in, right?
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But the minute you start to remove those people, your ball and your life seems to get smaller, and like you you start to feel like shunned and exiled from society because that was your society, that was your community, and that isn't is not nice, like that's like that that literally like a that sends triggers like it um that sends triggers to like our survival brain of like you know you you cannot be alone, like being alone you won't survive, like you know, it's it's quite it's really difficult for us to reconcile with, and so like when you kind of create that smaller space right in your life, your life feels small, like let's say as small as a tennis ball, but your life is actually still the size of a volleyball, you've just got more space, and if you're discerning, and if you don't jump into new things with fear and with worry, and you jump into them with calm and with joy and with some certainty, you can't have all the certainty in the world because these things are new.
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It means that your life, the volleyball, is going to be so much more fulfilling.
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Like the people that come into your life will bring you so much more joy, you'll feel so much more aligned with yourself, you'll do things that you love like that make you love yourself more, and that's kind of where I'm at at the moment when it comes to making friends, is like I feel as though because I have in my past made the time and the space, although very painful and difficult, to sit with the space, and I've been very discerning with who I let into my space and like who I pay attention to, and like how much you know, and you know, again, I'm not like expecting too much from these people because they're also their own person, and I cannot expect them to completely change who they are to be a friend of mine, but at the same time knowing my limits, knowing my boundaries, knowing what it is that I'm deserving of when it comes to friends.
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I now like look at my circle of friends that's growing like day by day, and it's it brings me like it really, really warms my heart because I feel as though like I am really starting to create and like collate a group of people in my life that like I feel like I will have you know, I feel that I'm learning so much from and I enjoy so much their company and I laugh so much with them, and it's so like joyous because everyone is allowed to be themselves with each other, like we're all like we all accept each other for who we are rather than like this socially like acceptable image that maybe we sh we convince ourselves when we're younger is needed, and that is like I saw something too long ago that was like if you want to talk to somebody else, the way that you talk to yourself, like have conversations in have conversations similar to that those that you have in your mind with someone else, like those people exist because you exist, like you exist, you're real, you're real, you're a real person, which means that other people similar to you do exist, but you've just got to hold off and make sure there is space in your life for people that are similar to you in that way, and will be able to hold those kinds of conversations with you.
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It's so important that you take time to think about what it is that you would like from your life, the kind of person you would like to be, the kind of people you would like to surround yourself with.
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We aren't taught this, we're not taught this when we're younger, to be like, what because as well, these things change, right?
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This is another thing, like what you liked when you were 15 is gonna be different to what you like when you're 25.
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But I think that fundamentally, like, we are still very similar to who we were when we're much younger.
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Like, of course I'm different in many ways.
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Thank God I'm different.
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But I think that my heart and my essence is the same, and my heart and my essence has always yearned for the type of friends that I've got now in my life, which are just like do not take themselves seriously, goofy, fun, funny, um, kind-hearted, open, friendly, um, adventurous, creative, um, curious, like people.
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That's the kind of people I would always want to have surrounded myself with.
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They're the kind of people that's my tribe, that is who I want in my life, you know.
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Um, and I'm starting to cultivate that, you know, and it's not always been the case.
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Um, I've I've like, you know, just so that they they don't go unnoticed or unmentioned, like I've had like a small handful of friends that I have had throughout my whole life practically, whom I I very much value, and um I'm super grateful for that friendship, that the those friendships.
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Um, but like I'm now starting to see like it become more and more like fluid and like things are starting to flow more, and people are starting to meet each other, and I'm like, oh god, I I really vibe with you, like you're just someone that I really like, and I met you through this friend who I really like.
00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:50.559
I also love the idea of like trusting your friend's judgment.
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Like, whenever I meet my friend's friends, I'm like, you're good people because you're my friend's friend, you know.
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I think that's such a beautiful thing, and like I don't know, I don't know if like that's something that is somewhat dying because of like social media.
00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:07.119
Um, I don't know.
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I don't know if I'm quite convinced by that, but it's something that I'm so like I'm kind of newly experiencing, I would say.
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Um, and it's probably because and it's probably because I am more open-minded to um these these opportunities and these experiences, you know.
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I think that these changes and these um this kind of like it's like what I said a couple of episodes ago, like if you want change to happen, you need to do the changing.
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Like you need to be the first push.
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The minute that you start to change, things around you begin to change because the dynamic of your life has to change to accommodate to accommodate your change.
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Um, and that's what I'm finding.
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Um, and the reason I kind of wanted to talk about this is because like friends has been something that I have felt extremely insecure about throughout my life.
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Like I've always felt really, really like desperately wanted by people, and I wanted to be accepted by people, and I wanted people to like me, regardless of if I liked them or not, or regardless if of if like I really cared about what it was that they sort of thought about me, you know.
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I just thought I needed to care, and so you know, I found myself in many many situations surrounded by people that I really didn't feel as though like I connected to, and I felt like aligned with, but it was better to have them than nothing in my mind.
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Um but actually the less I've done that and the more I've allowed sort of myself to just show up as who I am in my most genuine way, and it has it has just it has meant that I have met some really beautiful, beautiful people as a result, and it has been really rewarding, but it's not always been that way.
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That's kind of the point of the episode, is like it's not always been like that.
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I've I've found myself many a time like oh my god, many a time like sat in a pub or in a bar or in a club.
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Don't really say in clubs, but it's found myself in a club.
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Um just like why am I here?
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Why am I spending my money and my time and buying these outfits and throwing on so much makeup and why am I sat here?
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Like who is it that I really want to be around?
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Like you know.
00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:59.519
I don't know, feeling feeling that way, if like I'm sure people can relate to me, like being somewhere and being like, why the fuck am I here?
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It's super good because it means that you're beginning to learn what it is that you want and need and like what it is that brings you joy and satisfaction, but on the other hand, it's like really if you don't if you don't wake up to it and you don't start to to to act on that, you can spend years of your life being like why am I here?
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Or like when you're sat on a table in a pub and you feel so lonely, you feel like everyone around you is like just on a whole other energy level to you.
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You're like, I literally people don't care if I was if I was here or if I wasn't, you know, like I don't know.
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I I really don't enjoy that that experience and that feeling.
00:20:52.799 --> 00:21:04.960
So yeah, I've just like recently just been really mindful of like what what is it that I would like and how would I like to show up and what kind of friend would I like to be, and therefore what kind of friend would I like to have?
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Um and that has meant that I've had to feel lonely.
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That's meant that I've had many a Friday, Saturday night, um, completely without any plans, and like you know, just sort of twiddling my th fingers and thumbs and doing things that make me happy, and then therefore I've found people that can do that with me or do things that make me happy as well, and that we both enjoy together.
00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:32.079
And um yeah, that's been really nice, you know.
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But yeah, yeah, that's been my experience.
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I wonder if people have a similar experience, if people watching this have a similar experience to me, um, or if they've always been really authentic to themselves, like that friend of mine, Layla.
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She's always been so authentic to herself, and it has also meant that she's had to be lonely in her life.
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But the friendships that she's got, the people in her life that she has are like family, they're like family to her, you know, they are the most important people in her life, and she is the most important person in theirs, you know, like it's a really beautiful exchange and connection.
00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:22.960
Um so yeah, you find your people, you will find your people.
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It just takes a little bit of time and it takes knowing yourself to know where to look.
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So yeah.
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Um, I want to do a few more of these because once again I'm kind of like talking to my younger self.
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Um and I really like these ones.
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So, anyway, I will see you again this time next week.
