Coffee Chats With Dr. D

Okay, y', all, we are live. It's me, Dr. D, and my coffee today. How are you guys doing? So it's really cold where I'm at. I know there is a. A storm that blew through the US I don't know where you're located, but I'm in the Midwest, and this is not unusual for us. We always get a lot of snow, but this time it was a lot. And it's really, really cold, and I don't like it. Hey, Ms. Brittany. So I am warming up with my coffee here today. It's almost gone. I'm actually going to take a sip because I'm a little thirsty.

Hold on. Okay. Okay. Welcome. Hey, Luke. What's going on? Hey, Anna. All right, y', all. So I got a hot topic for you today. It's. Yes, it's way too cold. I'm sure it's probably colder where you guys are at and up there. So I do not envy you, but we're going to be talking about starting over. So y' all hear that phrase, new year, new you, and sometimes that comes with new relationships. And I have kind of been watching patterns of how people end relationships at the end of the year or sometimes at the beginning of the new year, because they're just like, I can't keep doing the same things.

I gotta let this go. So we're going to talk about starting over. So I have a couple questions for you guys to think about. All right, so the first question we're going to get into this. How do you know when a relationship needs a read? Moment of release. And I will share this personally with my best friend. Actually, we had a release that was unexpected, but at the time, it just made sense. You know, we were not necessarily bumping heads, but it just didn't feel right. And we had been friends for probably 15 years plus at the time.

And things changed when she got married. And so I decided what was best for me was to release that friendship. And we had what we call, we now call the lost years, where we didn't talk for five years. Okay. And I will say I thought, looking back, I thought that we had a true release of that friendship. But because we were already so intertwined throughout the years, like I grew up with her, that I didn't really release her completely from my life. There was no way I could. And so we both evolved.

We both grew a little bit, and we had a long conversation, and we restarted. So we didn't go back to the same type of a friendship we had before. Yes, we were still best friends, but the friendship looked different, right? We had different expectations, different boundaries, but we had to have that discussion to get back on the same page of who we were five years later. Does that make sense? So I maybe expected things should have been the same, but they weren't. Things changed. I grew as a person, she grew as an individual.

And because of that, our friendship had to evolve. But we had those five lost years where I thought there was a release and there wasn't. So I wonder if you've ever been through that or you've had a release where you thought that was the right thing to do, and it ended up you just needed a break, right? You just need a break, a little bit of time. Maybe it's a couple of months. Maybe you just need some space. And you really think deep down, like, I can't just start over with this person. I need to evolve.

That's your key word, evolve. So evolve in your friendships. All right, so next question. I had to write this down, y'. All. It's a lot. All right, so if you were to start over, what does that really mean? What does it mean to start over? So I have three options for you. One, does that mean that you need to start over with a new person? If. Is it a new relationship you need to get into? Is it a new friendship? You can't really get new family, so that doesn't apply. But if it's a friendship or romantic partner, you just need to get a new one, or do you just need new boundaries?

So whatever was hurting you in that relationship, do you just need to put. Put up a new boundary so you don't have to release the connection? You're just restarting? Or this is the third thing. Do you need to show up differently? So you need to have a new version of yourself in this connection, in this relationship? All right, so three options here. What do you think would be best for you? And this doesn't apply to all relationships that need to restart, But I want you to think, if there's someone that comes in mind, who this could be for.

So, one, do you just need a new person? Two, do you just need new boundaries? Or three, do you need to show up as a new version of yourself? Now, going back to this friendship I told y' all about, we had new boundaries because there was a new person in her life. She had a husband. I did not. So I had to have. I actually created the boundary for myself because I didn't want to interfere with her marriage because I knew how close we Were like, we were so close. And y' all probably have this person in your life where you talk every day, all day long, like texting, good morning, texting on your way to work, or phone calls throughout the day because you're best friends, right?

You should be doing that. But when there's another person that is also just as intimate, then you have to pull back when that's not supposed to be your spot, if that makes sense. So I created a boundary for myself to pull back and let her husband. Well, not let him, but I acknowledged. I'll say, that he was supposed to be that person for her. So I pulled away. So it wasn't that she gave me that boundary, but that boundary was definitely needed. And because I implemented that boundary for myself, I showed up after those five years that we lost when we reconnected, I showed up as a different version of myself to make sure that this time in our friendship, that it didn't go back to those bumps in the roads where it was uncomfortable.

All right, speak wonder. You're saying number three. Okay, so speak wonder. Tell me a little bit more how you have to show up differently. What parts of yourself are you activating when you're showing up as a different version of yourself? Now, for me, all right, I'm being very transparent with y'. All. I had to show up in a way that when I felt ignored or I felt like I was lonely because I wasn't spending as much time or we weren't talking as much, like the quality time dropped, I had to remind myself that that didn't mean that she didn't love me anymore.

That didn't mean that she didn't want to be a part of my life the same way. It's just that she really couldn't. That wasn't her job anymore because she had to give that energy and that time to her husband and her family. So I had to pivot. I had to acknowledge those things. And that was hard, y'. All. Now, this was some years back. I have evolved since then. But that was a hard lesson for me because I'm an only child. So my best friend was my everything. Like, she knew everything. Well, she does still today.

She knows everything about me. And so not having that quality time was really, really challenging because she's all I had. But that's when that part of starting over, I had to find new people, not to replace her. There's no one that could ever replace her. Right? And I think about. And tell me all you pet lovers, don't judge me for this. But let's say you had a dog, you lost your dog. Dogs are replaceable, but they're not the same. Right. Dogs have personalities. So people in our lives are not necessarily replaceable, but you can put somebody else in that spot.

I think you can move people around in your life, and that is a sense of starting over. So kind of. I don't know how to say it. It's like moving pieces around, right? So the person that you may not have spent a lot of quality time with before because you're in this new space, and maybe the person who was at the top of your list is no longer available to you as much as you need them to be. You got to move some people around. Does that make sense? Does that help? And don't feel bad about that. I don't think that means that there's anything wrong with you if you have to do that.

But I think that's just a part of life. I'm this huge believer that when we lose the connection, there's always another one coming, because we are made for connection. We are wired for connection. So we're never going to be in a space that we're going to be completely alone. We just got to learn how to move, move things around. Pivot. All right. Speak. Wonder. You said you need to start showing up with more confidence in yourself to slow down your default tendency to please all people. Oh, yes. You don't have to please anybody but yourself.

Okay. I can give you that permission. Please yourself. You have to take care of you. You have to fill your cup. All right. All right. That's all I have for y' all today. If you have anything else you want to share in the chat, feel free to do that. I will share as well that I will be doing an additional chat later this weekend. I believe it's the Saturday and next Saturday. Not sure if I'm gonna call it a coffee chat. I'm not sure what I want to call it, but it will be space that's available if there's anyone who wants to join.

It will be a little more interactive. So if you do join me on Saturday evening, I want you to be prepared to share what's on your heart, and that can be anything. This is a safe space, and I want to thank everyone at Cadre on the team that created the space for us, and I'm praying for everybody in Minnesota. Hope you guys are having some sense of joy today. Find it. It's there. We have to look for it sometimes. All right, Ms. Brittany. Thank you. For joining. And you guys go get your coffee warm up, okay?

Have a great day, y'. All. By.