Heal the Friendship. Or End It?
And how a chronic health challenge brought out the best in these friends
I’m facilitating a free in-person book club event, sponsored by Comma, a Bookshop and The Westhood Hills Nature Center. We are discussing Emma Nadler’s FANTASTIC memoir, The Unlikely Village of Eden. And Emma will be there for the discussion, too! This event will feature an interactive, thoughtful discussion with a focus on community and friendship.
Join us whether or not you’ve read the book.
Please use this link to sign up so we know how many people to expect.
Join the next session of the virtual Dear Nina Book Club!
This time we're discussing the instant NYT bestseller ---Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make--and Keep--Friends by Marisa G. Franco, Ph.D.
Monday, July 24th, 7:00PM CST. Please use this link to sign up.
“Open up or break up”
Speaking of Platonic—on this week’s episode of Dear Nina (ep. 63), I spoke to Dr. Marisa Franco about addressing conflict in a friendship. I was inspired to choose this topic after reading a section in her book about opening up in a friendship or breaking up. Residual anger grows when people refuse to open up, which can lead to ending a friendship that could have easily been healed with one conversation.
And if you’re going to carry a grudge over things a friend has done without ever giving the friend a chance to apologize or explain, why are you still in this friendship? It’s a fair question.
A favorite quote from the episode:
“We need to use anger as a symbol to heal something rather than push it away. Because what happens when we push it away is that there were so many junctures where we could have healed something and we didn’t, and then it gets to be too much. We’ve accumulated too many grudges. And at that point, all we feel we can do is withdraw from the friendship. And that’s why expressing our anger in a certain type of way is a portal to healing the friendship.” ~ Dr. Marisa Franco, ep. 63
And this one too:
“When friends bring up an issue with us, remember it as an act of love. They are giving us an opportunity to reconcile. They’re giving us enlightenment as to how we can do better as a friend. And that’s gold. How rare do we get that in our interactions?”
Chronic health challenges and a beautiful act of friendship
If you follow me anywhere on social media, you’ve seen me sharing quotes from Leslie Hooton, my guest in episode 62. She told me about the friends who each took a day to walk with her when the gyms closed in March 2020. Not walking daily would have put Leslie’s leg muscles at risk of not working as well as they need to after a stroke at birth and several surgeries in her lifetime.
These specific friends are still keeping the walking schedule three years later!
A favorite moment from the episode: (Make sure you read Leslie’s turns to yourself in a fabulous Southern accent!
Leslie: My beloved wellness center closes, and I swear to goodness, Nina, it was like a death in the family. I don’t have any exercise equipment here at my house, so I was completely freaking out. I mean, I understand that I should have been freaked out about Covid, but no, I was freaked out about how the heck am I going to walk? I was talking to a friend of mine one day and she goes, Leslie, I got you covered. And I said, what? And then all of a sudden, she had somebody for me to walk with Monday through Friday. Monday is Nan, Tuesday is Maryanne. Wednesday is Leslie, Thursday is Lisa, and then Friday is Susan.
It was cold, it was rainy. But if they were willing to walk with me, I donned my raincoat or my coat and we would walk outside, except for a few days, we rarely missed. And that was, to me—I’m gonna choke up—
Nina: I’m going to choke up, it’s so sweet.
Leslie: It was an act of love, an act of friendship. I don’t know if, you’re spiritual.
Nina: I am.
Leslie: It is what the divine looks like to me. And so we walk and so it is just an amazing, I call it the friendship of the walking partners, You know, instead of the traveling pants, it is the walking partners and they are as committed as I am.
Latest TV Shows I’m Watching and Books I’m Reading
The show Platonic on AppleTV is sort of silly with the typical Seth Rogen antics, however there are deeper ideas going on, like how emotionally close friends can get and how that can feel threatening in a marriage.
I’m almost done with Queen Charlotte and always love the Bridgerton drama.
I read Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. It was a quiet book in some ways, but I enjoyed reading it. I love most books about four kids and how their adult lives play out.
My updated 2023 reading list is here.
Articles and Episodes About Friendship and Other Stuff I’ve Liked Lately
I see so many friendship-related things, either because I find them myself or listeners send them to me. I love hearing from listeners and readers!
Want to watch me question “Minnesota Nice” on video? I was interviewed for a TikTok and Instagram Reel about friendship. It’s only a few minutes long. I’m such a dork, but I’m embracing it. What choice do I have in this video-centered world!?
I’ve been thinking about Adam Grant’s latest in NYT a lot since I read it. “Your Most Ambivalent Relationships Are the Most Toxic” It’s essentially about “frenemies”— the relationships that are sometimes good and sometimes not so good. Example: The friend who gives you an amazing opportunity by recommending you for a job, but always criticizes you.
“It’s more upsetting to be let down by people you like sometimes than by people you dislike all the time. When someone stabs you in the back, it stings more if he’s been friendly to your face.”
I enjoyed the subtle humor of this 2015 piece from The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts column. "Everything I’m Afraid Might Happen If I Ask New Acquaintances to Get Coffee”
“They’ll say yes, and we’ll have a great time and become fast friends and then they’ll make me go to their wedding and it will be expensive.”
Introducing yourself to a stranger every day as a method of making friends. Interesting piece by James Garrett on Medium.
“Breaking Up (With Friends) Is Hard to Do” Nedra Glover Tawwab
The latest anonymous question
“Friends, You Don’t Have to Read my Book: But you should ask me how it’s going sometimes.” ←←←
Some readers saw that headline and congratulated me for having a book on the way. This letter isn’t about me. I don’t have a book coming out! But the question applies to podcasters, too, so I shared in the answer how I handle the letter writer’s problem from a podcaster’s point of view.
Have an anonymous question or an episode idea you want to share with me?
You can do that here, and I will never know it was from you.
Have a great week everyone!
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That exchange with Leslie Hooton (episode excerpt) is beautiful! Love this newsletter.