The Beauty of Friendships, Alone Time, and Good Cookies

This week, I’m keeping it real about something I’ve been struggling with: feeling like I’m not a priority in my friends’ lives. As someone who treasures close friendships, it’s hard to accept that I’m often lower on their list—even though they’re at the top of mine. I share how I’ve been navigating these feelings, what I’ve learned about being my own source of comfort, and tips on embracing those lonely moments. Plus, a little on cookies, books, and why I’m finally (really!) promising to slow down.

Transcript

  Hello, hello, everyone. Welcome to the new episode. It's a Saturday night and I'm sitting here in my apartment recording. I don't have any plans today. Actually, this weekend is kind of  chill for me. I didn't have any plans yesterday. I don't have any plans today. There's a lot of time that I'm spending on my own, alone, and just reflecting on life, and let me tell you, it's still hard.

I've been working on myself a lot, but sometimes it just hits you, and it's one of those weekends when,  you know, people are busy, especially when I'm in the stage in my life where most of my friends have families or partners or They've just had kids, and they're busy, or they're busy with their projects and like whatever, and it's you are not their top of mind, and It's something that it's been very hard for me to come to terms with because my family's not here I actually don't have siblings.

So i'm an only child. My parents don't live in canada. So It's interesting. I've always relied on my friends a lot to Be my emotional support to be my chosen family to be my source of joy and socialization And i'm not a very social Person in terms of I don't need to be around people, but I love to be around people that I care about and if it's not the people that I care about, then I'm fine on my own.

So like the hierarchy in my head goes like. People I care about on my own and then  random people and I'm not gonna lie I'm in this period in my life where I don't have a lot of close friends that are accessible to me At any point in time what I mean by that is you always have  i'm all at least me Yeah, i'm used to have at least this one girlfriend who I can talk about anything at any point in time in the day And be like, hey, I just saw this.

What do you think? Hey, do you want to do this? Do you want to grab a coffee? Do you want that and Currently, I don't have many people like that  and it causes me to reassess and rethink a lot of things in my life. And also it's teaching me a lot about myself and about  how to be comfortable, truly comfortable on my own.

Because it's one thing when you have a large group of friends and you have a lot of people, lots of plans, and you don't have a relationship, but you still have those people to support you. And it's a whole different thing when You're not a relationship, and you don't have a huge support system.  It hasn't always been like that for me, but recently, probably, I don't want to say, I don't want to phrase it like that, but if we're being objective in terms of how many people I am, I feel close to, this is probably the loneliest winter I've had since,  not even sure, in over 10 years. 

And, This is interesting. I am extremely comfortable with myself. I'm an only child. I grew up alone. I'm an introvert I have no problem being alone, but sometimes it gets to me because We're still social creatures, right and we still need connection And I think it's been brought up by multiple people before me So I don't claim to be original but  it's really hard to prioritize people who don't prioritize you I'm not saying my friends don't prioritize me, but I'm way lower on their priority list than they are on mine.

And this is just the reality of life, and I don't even know, like, it's not a question of fair, unfair. It's just sad for me, and for people in my position, because who else am I gonna prioritize? I, again,  I'm not in a relationship. I don't know. Don't have my family here. Who else am I going to prioritize? My friends are my everything.

They're my source of comfort. They are my Yeah,  they're my support system And it just sucks that they have so many people to put above me And I'm not saying if I called them  and said, oh, I'm like really sad or like I need help Obviously, there's a lot of people and I I assume like all of them are gonna Drop everything and help me if I really needed it, but sometimes for me the beauty of friendships It is in these random interactions and mean nothing It's like in a random meme that somebody sends you or a random spontaneous invitation I'll like just a text saying like oh like I'm not doing anything tonight I want to come over like watch a movie and like order like sushi, whatever This is a beauty or like just saying hey, what's thinking about you?

How are you doing? This is the beauty of the friendships to me  personally because I spend so much time on my own and Again, it just sucks that Your friends  are not always in the same place and I'm in this stage in my life where I? Spend more time on my own that I used to and it's bringing up issues not issues But it's bringing up stuff in my head like yesterday.

I had a very very Transcribed Lonely night.  I was just feeling lonely and I kind of embraced it and This is where the work that I've been doing is kind of paying off because I just want to give you some tips I know I just did an episode on loneliness, but this is Coming from a different perspective.

So  I've learned to talk to my inner child and I've really learned what is interesting I finally understand what these meditation gurus are talking about in terms of You need to observe your thoughts and not identify with them. And this is what I.  Passively been doing I have never practiced it actively, but I just realized that it comes to me by default now when yesterday I was extremely sad and there is someone that I am interested in who is not texting me and who did not make plans and before I would have put it all on myself and I would be like Extremely sad and I would be like, why don't they want to hang out with me?

What did I do wrong? Did I say something did am I too much? Am I not enough? What is that? And I would totally be thinking. Oh my god. I need to invent an excuse to text them And what I have learned in therapy is that  begin to start You need to learn to identify where this need to text them is coming from.

Is it coming from the fact that I genuinely miss this person and I'm wondering how they are, or I genuinely stumbled upon something that they might be interested in and I want to share? Then it's totally fine. And if you just want to find out how they are, and if you see something interesting, just send it to them.

Just ask them. Just be like, hey, what's up? I was just thinking about you. And I used to think this is so I'm kind of like losing my dignity. If I do this, I don't think this way anymore. I think it's totally fine as long as it's coming from this place. And It can also come from a different need for if I'm lonely, I need validation, I want attention, all of that stuff.

And I'm trying to invent an excuse to talk to this person. This is the time when you turn your attention to yourself  and you think about what do I need in this moment? Why am I clinging on to this feeling? Am I putting all this power? In the hands of the other person to text me and make me feel good when in reality It's me who should be making myself feel good.

This is when I talk to my inner child This is when I identify what I need and this is what I did yesterday. I was really sad because An interaction that I had with this person did not go according to plan and it stirred up some shit within myself. You know, I'm like a formerly anxiously attached girly, so I get triggered sometimes,  and I was at the point where I was so sad.

I did my affirmations that I also have on my podcast here. If you're not following, please subscribe. I have affirmations for all kinds of stuff. So I did that. Then I talked to my inner child. I did visualizations. I just figured out what I need. I went and got myself. Some nice food. I got some fruit. I got really nice pineapple and I made myself dinner and I was, by the end of the day, I was feeling happy.

I also tried to reach out to some people, not that person, because that would have been not out of the A genuine need to talk to them, but it would have been out of deficit. But I just reached out to some friends and we talked about getting tickets to Taylor Swift. Really, I really tried yesterday, by the way.

I saw this, I'm in this community group on Facebook. And I saw this person posting. And I thought maybe this is real. And  I googled her name and it didn't come up as a scam anywhere and but yeah turned out to be a scam But yeah for a brief moment for around 20 minutes I thought I might be going to see taylor swift today.

Not that I really want to i'm not like a swifty But I do think she puts on a good show and I do think I would have had fun  But yeah, i'm just not willing to pay more than 400 maybe 500 And I know that's not realistic. So that's why I am not You It's why I'm at home on the last night of her concert  and again I'm not extremely sad about that if I had an opportunity to go for a reasonable more or less reasonable price I would have gone but yeah, anyway yesterday for a brief moment I thought I was going to Taylor Swift and I was talking to two other girlfriends who would potentially be interested and then I did my Practices that I just talked about and by the end of the night.

I was feeling good Not obviously on top of the world, but I was feeling good and yeah, I just just wanted to share that because people who meet me even I was at this party last week and I met girl two girls who were younger than me and they were asking me questions about like we're talking about dating and they were talking about standards and how to enforce them and we were I do love sharing my experience with that because I genuinely think I have done a lot of work and not that I'm Preaching here and I'm so smart and I'm perfect I did my fair share of toxic stuff in my early 20s So I'm not  by no means am I coming from this perspective where  I'm the best and I know Everything and I'm just like here to teach you in parts on wisdom It just comes from experience, right, just by virtue of being older than these girls.

I had things to share with them and they both told me that I have this air of like having my shit together. And like I do in general have my shit together. I just wanted to share that sometimes I don't and I also have self destructive days and I also have sad days and lonely days and days when I'm, I don't like myself and I don't love myself. 

They happen less and less and I know what to do with them, but I'm just saying don't judge other people's external characteristics don't compare other people's external world and the Image that they put out to your internal world because you don't know what's going on with this person somebody  I don't know if somebody met me Yesterday, I was working out of a coffee shop at night and if somebody met me at the coffee shop, they would have had an impression that You I had my shit together because I was sitting there working on my newsletter that I'm sending out tomorrow Also, if you're following from the newsletter, I've had quite a bunch of new followers lately.

So Thank you for following. I'm very excited to have you here But yeah, I was working on my newsletter and if somebody talked to me you're like Oh, she has a career in marketing and she has a side hustle and she works out and she's just  Genuinely, like, seems like she has it all together. And the way I was feeling was definitely not that.

So, yeah, I guess my message here is just, you never know. You never know what's going on in other people's heads. And, yeah, just don't compare yourself to other people, people's exterior, and what they present on the outside. I know I'm kind of all over the place today, but, yeah. I think, you know, Spending time alone makes me self reflective this way.

And my only hope here is to make you guys feel like you can relate to this and make you guys feel like you're not alone.  Bottom line, fun thing, a fun thing that I learned to do is just to distinguish between myself and what I'm feeling.  And even yesterday when I was feeling lonely,  I was trying to approach it from a perspective of like, wow, that's interesting. 

I see why you're being triggered right now, and I see why you're sad, but you don't have to identify with it. And these feelings don't mean anything about you. You can work with them, and you can honor them, but they're not you. And this is interesting, because I hear people who are far away, way further along the path of enlightenment and meditation, and they talk about this all the time, and I feel like in the last couple of months, I really start to understand what they mean.

How you don't have to be What you're feeling  But anyway, let's go to two more positive stuff. That was a kind of a long introduction But I hope you guys can relate to this and I hope I'm helping at least one person to make you like they're not alone in this and if you're feeling lonely It's gonna pass dedicate this energy towards yourself do fun things.

Go get a hobby Go get  a new cute outfit go work out There is so many things the world is so big and they're not this person that you're thinking about and they're not your job And they're not the world is like so much bigger than you think it is in this moment So yeah, things are gonna be fine guys.

Things are gonna be great. So yeah, let's move on to the updates for this week. I Know how tired you are of hearing that I'm tired. But guys this week I got sick And This is extremely frustrating to me because I think now I really really need to honor my body's desire to take a break Because I feel like I've been talking about it and I have not been resting enough But my body's just refusing to collaborate with me and I I hate it but I was feeling really tired then I was feeling really burnt out and Then finally I went to dinner with my girlfriend's boyfriend On Tuesday, we went to this new Greek restaurant called Milo's and it's a very good place.

It's very much on the expensive side, not gonna lie. And it's one of those places where they have fresh fish on display and you pick the one you want. And it's a fantastic restaurant, very nice, the food was amazing. But yeah, more on the expensive side. And then I got home and I suddenly felt sick.

And I just went to bed and I woke up with a sore throat and with a runny nose. And I was so disappointed just in life because I feel like I'm trying to honor my body's need to rest but okay just because of all of these dance workshops and I mean that I'm in um I've not been honoring it properly I guess and my body just refuses to cooperate with me And I'm not I have not been feeling my best So I think  next week is gonna be the last week that this year that I'm doing aggressive strength training and then December I'm just taking off To do more pilates and stretching i'm just gonna maybe i'll strength train a full body once a week just to not lose my muscle But I really really want to focus on slowing things down, especially in this time in my life where i'm working a lot on Understanding my body better and honoring what it needs And yeah, I know i've been talking about taking october off, but like obviously didn't happen But my dance workshops are all going to be done within two weeks.

So yeah, I think  I'm officially promising in front of all of you guys Which is hundreds of people that i'm gonna take december off and just do stretching classes yoga classes pilates And maybe a full body strength workout because I feel like I need this and Until I honor this my body will just keep throwing tantrums because this is what it's doing and it's Hindering my progress a lot in all the other areas.

So if I just take this break I think this is what my body needs right now Yeah in terms of restaurants Milo's great place a little bit expensive. Oh, I finally tried Andrea's cookies Guys, they're good. They're good. I tried also this week's crumble I finally went to the well with a friend and we got minis and they were pretty good Uh, but andrea's cookies are something Different they're more they're more like craigs cookies,  which I like more crumble tastes They taste good, but they're like american good.

They're not high quality cookies They are extremely high in sugar very sweet. The flavors are very nice, but they're not high quality cookies But Andrea's Cookies aren't. I tried the chocolate Kanafeh, which was the whole reason why I wanted to try Andrea's Cookies, and it's so good. I have been, I was trying, at some point I was obsessed with this, with the Dubai chocolate, and I was going to make this, but I couldn't find the Kanafeh anywhere.

So I kind of gave up on the idea, but finally I did this, and I also tried Red Velvet. And I also tried what was the other flavor? Oh. Banoffee which is also a great flavor. So yeah very good cookies. I really recommend it I went right at 11 when they open and there was a small line, but not too bad much better than crumble So yeah, really really good in terms of books.

I finally finished tell me lies  And it kind of grew on me. I know last week I was saying how I'm disappointed with the writing, but I think I know why she writes it that way.  Because Lucy's so confused and the writing seems to be kind of all over the place. And I think that's because she's literally so confused by Steven's behavior all the time.

And because she Literally doesn't know what to do. That's why it's a little bit. What's the best way to describe it? It's very Fragmented  it's not consistent. It's not Cohesive. Yeah, I think that's a good word. So and yeah, obviously the story does not incorporate even half of what's in the show and I see how like The screenwriters took liberties with the plot,  which is not necessarily good or bad, because I actually like both the book and the show.

This might be one of the only rare cases where I actually like the show more, because I feel like they just added so much more drama.  But overall, I really like the book, and I just returned it to the library today, and I took out a new one, which is called Caravelle. Which is supposed to be like Hunger Games, I think, which I never read.

But I'm, I usually never read fiction, but I'm on a fiction kick because  I also write and as a writer, I think it is important to explore new avenues for inspiration and also I like to know what's going on in pop culture, in the world of books, in the world of music, and all of that and I feel like these are very classic books of our generation and I want to know what it's all about.

So yeah, I'm gonna start reading Caraval and also I finally, finally got my hands on, Akatar. So I have A little over three, two weeks to read it. So first that and then Caraval. I'm gonna finish one or the other by next week. So you'll know what I think. But yeah, also very excited about that. And also giving my mind a little break because I'm usually reading an obscene amount of nonfiction.

So it's always go, go, go. What can I learn from this? How can I be productive? And I'm trying to, again, give myself time and grace to just relax a little bit and  not everything has to serve a purpose. And this is serving a purpose. This is also you never know what it's gonna inspire you and in what way so yeah, very excited about that And I think this is all I have for you for today If you are coming from if you're not following my newsletter, please follow it's amazing, especially this week I think it's the biggest edition that I've ever had I have 16 or 17 events, which is unheard of and yeah, thank you for being here and I see you next week