The Cost of Quiet: How to Stop Avoiding Conflict and Have Those Hard Conversations with Colette Jane Fehr

Here you are, leaving that friendship hangout frustrated again. 

You swear you’ll tackle the issue at the next meet-up, but then, time goes by. You’ve pushed the problem aside. Until it happens again. And again. Suddenly, this little issue has become a major one.

Today’s guest is Colette Jane Fehr, a therapist, TEDX speaker, and author of the Amazon bestselling book, The Cost of Quiet. Her work is rooted in couples therapy, but don’t press pause! Every single skill she teaches transfers directly to friendships.

If you have ever swallowed something hard and pushed it down because you didn’t know how to bring it up, this episode is for you. 

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• Conflict avoidance: the tendency to not be too intense or demanding with friends – and consequently push issues under the rug
• What Colette calls the “victim volcano,” when untended issues stack up and eventually erupt
• Colette’s and my own personal experiences navigating issues between friends that need to be addressed
• Self-connected communication, which helps us prepare before sharing our grievances with friends, and “Good Girl-Itis”

Resources & Links

Listen to Episode 12 and learn about my theory about the Roots framework.

Order Colette’s book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love. 

And preorder my book! Are We Friends Yet? comes out June 16. The missing vocabulary for every relationship in your life and a real plan for what to do with it. When you sign up to order the book, you get immediate access to the Less Lonely Club Community and the 10-Day Connection Reset Private Podcast.

Like what you hear? Visit my website, leave me a voicemail, and follow me on Instagram and TikTok!

Want to take this conversation a step further? Send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting and use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out!

This episode is sponsored by Are We Friends Yet?, Alex’s book on building the support system you’ve been wanting.

Buy the book and submit your receipt before July 16th to get The Connector’s Toolkit free: a private pep talk podcast for the moments that feel hardest, a full year in The Less Lonely Club, and more. Grab your bonuses at alexalexander.com/are-we-friends-yet

This episode is sponsored by Slowly, a digital pen pal app used by over 10 million people worldwide. If you’ve been looking for a low-pressure way to connect with someone completely outside your normal friendship circle, this is it. Exchange letters at your own pace, no small talk panic required.

Download Slowly free and get 30% off Slowly Plus using my link: https://open.slowly.app/miXL/l8ei5iw6

WANT MORE?

My book, Are We Friends Yet? is here. Order your copy today!

Dive into The Connection Reset. A 10-day private podcast to help you see the abundance of connection that already exists in your day-to-day (Yes. Really. I promise you have more than you realize). Start today. 

Transcript

Podcast Intro/Outro: 0:53

All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 1:51

Here you are leaving that friendship hangout frustrated again, it is circling in your head. You swear you're going to bring it up next time you see them. But then weeks go by, the text messages feel a little off in the meantime, and by the time you actually see each other again, it has been so long that you kind of miss them, and you've forgotten about why you are so frustrated, or maybe you've just pushed it aside. You've convinced yourself it's fine, it's fine. I'll get over it. I'm just being dramatic, needy. I just want to spend time with my friend. We have fun plans today, and you're happy to be together. So you push it aside, you ignore it, you decide it's not worth it, and then it happens again. And you do the same thing for months, years, decades, until one day you are so frustrated, so full of everything that you have never said out loud, that you just explode. And that could be the end of a friendship that you actually really love. But what if instead, you had little conversations along the way, small releases of pressure before it ever built up to that point? I know that sounds uncomfortable to always be meeting up with your friends and having to kind of address these little things. We only get so much time with our friends. But what could that do for a friendship long term? That's what we're talking about today. My guest is Colette Jane Fehr, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, TEDx, speaker and the author of the number one Amazon best selling book, The Cost of Quiet, How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love. Now her work is rooted in couples therapy, but do not hit pause. Do not end this conversation, because every single skill that she teaches transfers directly to your friendships, and you're going to see that in the conversation we have today, because we talk about our own friendships, she talks about how she's using these exact skills she uses in couples therapy with her friends. In fact, she is navigating one of these very hard conversations with her own friend right now in real time, and she shares with us. So if you have ever swallowed something hard, you've just pushed it down because you didn't know how to bring it up. This episode is for you. Let's get into it.

Alex Alexander: 4:32

Colette, thank you so much for being here today. I'm just I'm so excited.

Colette Jane Fehr: 4:37

Me too. Thanks for having me.

Alex Alexander: 4:40

You know, I was just saying to you, I don't think you get to talk about friendship all the time,

Colette Jane Fehr: 4:45

not as much as I'd like to.

Alex Alexander: 4:48

Well, here's the thing, when I started talking about friendship on the internet, I never thought I would spend so much time talking about romantic relationships. There's so much similarity in a lot of ways, and sometimes I wish we treated aspects of our friendships a little bit more like romantic relationships, not completely, but just certain things. And so I personally see so much overlap between the two, it makes total sense to me.

Colette Jane Fehr: 5:19

Yeah, me too. They're, in many cases, in some cases, the most important relationships we have, and in many cases, they're at least one of the most important relationships, and they're just as intimate, but we don't always give them the same recognition or prioritization, at least in the discourse, and I think it is important that we do, especially since we're in this relationship revolution where a lot of people are eschewing romantic relationships for a variety of reasons, and especially as women saying, You know what? Enough of all that. It's brought me nothing but misery, and I want to get my needs for connection met through my friendship. So I think we're going to see more of this and more recognition as we should.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 6:03

I was just thinking like as a couples therapists, do you end up talking about friendship a decent amount in sessions with people?

Colette Jane Fehr: 6:09

Not really, because what tends to happen is that people are coming in to work on their pattern with one another, and we're really in the kind of process I do, which is Emotionally Focused couples therapy. It's actually the evidence based gold standard in couples treatment. It's an experiential process, so we don't have a lot of time to chit chat, and I actually try to get people out of really talking about their issues at all, and into what happens in their body, what's the story their mind makes up, and how do they react behaviorally in these triggered moments? So we tend not to get a lot of context really about people's lives. Now, when I work with individuals, absolutely, we talk about friendship, tons, tons and tons, but couples, we're in the fire. We're in the moment. We are working on that pattern, and it's really trying to have regulation in moments of fight or flight, is really what couples therapy is all about.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 7:11

Well, I mean, as you were talking. I was thinking to myself, hopefully your couples take that and it applies to other relationships, because I also know that so many people in their friendships, you know, have attachment issues. Is what they tell me, yeah. That's when people talk about

Colette Jane Fehr: 7:29

Yeah, and you get triggered,

Alex Alexander: 7:31

and you're up in our heads making up all sorts of stories, especially, I think, because we aren't living necessarily our day to day lives with people that gives all this distance to really create our own narrative and convince ourselves of things that we haven't even talked about.

Colette Jane Fehr: 7:47

Oh, absolutely. I mean, this process that I work on in couples therapy is the same process in all our relationships. So whatever dynamic of a relationship shows up in this room, I'm going to be working the same way with them, and you're absolutely right. In friendships, we get triggered, and we tend to pull back and avoid and get into our head and write stories. And this is actually the very thing that creates all the problems. This is what I wrote my book about, that we avoid, and that really creates more problems, because in that distance we fill in, the gap, we fill in with more negative often than is the case. We try to read people's minds, and then we get more and more resentful and distant, and can become hard to find our way back. And I want people to have a solution for that, because we know these relationships, especially friendships, in many cases, are the only relationships that are going to go the distance, and we've got to really have great communication there.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 8:50

Thank you for saying they go the distance. I agree. You know, sometimes you've been friends with somebody, not always, but sometimes you've been friends with somebody for decades before you meet a romantic partner, and they're also the person that, like you know, you say to your friend, well, something ever happened, we'd move in together, kind of thing, like you have this plan. Hopefully it works out that way, that this friendship spans decades and decades of your life.

Colette Jane Fehr: 9:15

I agree. And in fact, I want, if I have another business pivot in my life, later in life, I want to go into the business of creating residential facilities that have like pods for women to live just with other girls. No Boys Allowed. Sorry, guys, even though I'm married.

Alex Alexander: 9:34

people are doing that. That is the best. I actually have some interviews coming up with people who are doing that.

Colette Jane Fehr: 9:39

Yeah, I think it's a growing trend. I think we're going to see more and more of it. And this, for me, goes back to the origin, because I went to all girls school, went to Catholic school a million years ago, but in Connecticut, and even though we had nuns and uniforms and lots of rules, and I didn't necessarily love those aspects, especially at the time, the camaraderie of being at a small school all girls, we were not Catty, it was really looking back, especially, of course, there were some Moments in middle school, but not that many, considering what can go on. It was such a great group of girls that I really started my life relying on strong female friendships, and I'm friends with so many of those women to this day, even though I have lived away from New York and Connecticut, where I grew up and went to school, and I've been in Florida for 30 years, and those friendships still go on.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 10:39

So when we're talking about all these friendships to get into, like the real stuff that has to do with your book here, you know, in the book, you talk about how it isn't fighting that destroys relationships, it's conflict. Avoidance. Can we talk a little bit like how people are avoiding? Like, what does that show up and look like?

Colette Jane Fehr: 10:59

Yeah, and you know, it's not always being quiet. The title is a little bit deceptive. The book's called The Cost of Quiet, but quiet is really a euphemism for avoidance, just like you said. And so we avoid things in lots of different ways. Some of them are very silent. We just shut down. You know, we feel that pull in our body, someone's dead, something that hurts us or upsets us, that we just want to kind of that tightness in the chest, and we just want to retreat and say, forget it, or I'm going to pull myself away until I'm over it, and then I'll just sweep it under the rug and carry on. That's a very, very common one, especially in friendships, because there's a message we get to some degree, that even though friendships are great and they last a lifetime, and girls supporting girls and all this stuff, there's also this idea that we shouldn't be too intense with our friends, that friendships should be easy, that we shouldn't be demanding, and so I think if a friend hurts us, we tend to go that avoidant route of just, Okay, well, my feelings are hurt, or I'm mad, or I feel betrayed or left out or blown off, but I'm just going to pull myself away until I get over it, or I'm going to get a Little passive aggressive. In the book, I tend to see that leads to what I call victim volcano, which is a syndrome that's very common, especially in friendships and romantic relationships too, and work, which is that we stuff things and we try to sweep them under the rug and tell ourselves it's not that big of a deal. It won't be productive to say anything. It'll only make things awkward, and it won't really change anything. So why bother? And then what happens is they stack up inside, and we're collecting evidence for a narrative we're building. And then eventually one thing happens, and we've had it, and then we blow like all that hot lava spewing. And oftentimes even worse is that the person on the other side makes it all about your reaction. And in fairness, your reaction is an eruption, but the issue itself never gets addressed. And sometimes the fallout of all that lava is so damaging that the friendship is destroyed when if we had just addressed the thing and known how to address it in a way that's clear and kind and vulnerable, usually things are misunderstandings that can be repaired. So those are two of the most common ways, but there's all kinds of things people do. Sometimes it's just yelling and lashing out or being hot tempered, saying things we later regret. And a lot of people will say, Oh, well, I was mad. I didn't mean it, but your words stick, and those things damage relationships.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 13:52

Yeah. I mean, as you're listing all those off, I'm like, check, check, check, check. Like, I can think of different scenarios with friends where I've either watched that happen between friends or I have been on like, the receiving end of that. We've all seen it. Another one that actually just popped into my head is I did an episode actually about this experience recently, but a friend of mine was sharing some really good news, and I don't even want what she achieved. Like, that's not a goal of mine, but something about it really triggered me, and I kind of shut down. And luckily, I spent a lot of time thinking about friendship, and also my husband was there, so he was able to kind of have the excitement while I process what was happening. But later, I told her, like, Hey, I'm really sorry for how I acted. That was not great, but a lot of people would just shut down and be like, Wow, I'm a bad friend for feeling that way for achievement. Yeah, human stuff. Human stuff. I could have just like, compartmentalized that, boxed it up, blamed it on myself, when, in reality, it was, like a very human reaction,

Colette Jane Fehr: 15:06

and the fact that you came back and acknowledged it, that repair is enough to keep a friendship going strong. We're allowed to be human. We do have reactions. We do get triggered, even when we really love someone, and it's about being connected to yourself. This process that I outline in the book that's the antidote is really how to do exactly what you described, to recognize that you had a reaction, to take ownership of it, to not beat yourself up, but also to come forward with your friend and repair and I'm guessing she reacted pretty well, and

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 15:43

oh yeah, we've been friends for a really long time. So I'm lucky in that sense, because we were able to really kind of get into the nitty gritty of it, like I was able to. Not only apologize, but to be like, Hey, I don't even know why I Yeah, was so upset about that, but after thinking about it, I think it has to do with like, the feeling of not having to worry about this thing anymore. Like, it had to do with me wanting this kind of like feeling I assume she will get from this achievement. It had nothing to do with the achievement itself. Like, that's not even a goal I have,

Colette Jane Fehr: 16:17

right?

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 16:18

But I was lucky, because we're close enough that I could actually, like, fully tell her the whole situation. And you know, if I wasn't as close to her, we've been friends for decades now, like, maybe I would have just apologized, which I still would think would be enough.

Colette Jane Fehr: 16:32

I agree. I agree. So it's funny. As you're talking, I'm realizing and thinking of a situation I have in my own life with one of my friends that goes back a long time, but we don't see each other as often now. And it's a little bit of an example of, you know, I think it's it's harder in some ways, it's harder when you're really close to someone, because there's so much at stake. But then in other ways, when you're not as close, or you don't see someone often, it can be really awkward to find a time or to do what I think a lot of people do that I see in therapy is questioning themselves about like, is this a thing? Should this be a thing? And the truth is, if you feel something, it's a thing.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 17:20

Yeah.

Colette Jane Fehr: 17:21

And this friend really disappointed me and behaved in a very hurtful way around the launch of my book The cost of quiet, which is just a couple of months ago. And you know your story about seeing your friend have success other people, I've told the story to think that she was having some kind of a reaction to my success. Now I won't know until I talk about it with her, but I don't think that's what it is in this case. Now I'm writing my own story. I don't know what it is until I ask her, but it's been really challenging, because I'm so hurt by her behavior. She just was very dismissive to me, and really the message I got was that I don't feel cherished as a friend. I don't feel like the friendship is as important to her as maybe it's been to me, and I think I've been seeing other signs of that for a long time and sweeping them under the rug. But yeah, this is why it's so important to talk about it, because otherwise I'm going to assume things that may or may not be true, and then after I have a conversation with her, and a safe conversation in a way that's really kind and tactful and clear, and I think, I do think there's an important methodology to that, how you come forward, that can greatly predict success, then I can decide, you know, maybe going forward, I'm not going to invest as much. Maybe we're not as good of friends as I wish we were, or as we used to be, and that would be sad, but that can be a choice going forward, if that's the case, but if I don't have the conversation, I'm going to react based on potentially faulty assumptions, and I'm going to feel suppressed and resentful and sad and hurt inside. And I noticed since this happened, the conversation, what happened with her, has been playing over in my head periodically, and the only reason I haven't had the conversation yet is she's been traveling and I've been doing book launch, but I'm going to do it, and I kind of dread it, which is also normal, but I know it's gonna feel good on the other side, no matter how she reacts.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 19:38

I mean, this is a perfect example. You came in ready Colette when you said you have a methodology. Can you talk us through what that looks like?

Colette Jane Fehr: 19:49

Yeah. So I call it l communication. And in the middle section of the book, I really give you an exact blueprint for how to do this, down to scripts and a processing tool. I kind of describe it like emotional Mad Libs, where you can really fill in your own stuff, because a big missing piece is that we have to prepare before we share, right? The whole idea is that we want to address things that bother us, and then we want to share about them after we've processed. And then we want to repair right, anything that goes awry, whatever the misunderstanding is. So this tool to process takes you inside to connect with yourself and really get clear on, okay, what am I feeling in my body? Those sensations like a tightness in the chest, a pit in your stomach, all of which I can even feel a little bit right now as I tell you the story of my friend, right? The body comes alive and presents. Sensations that show us emotions are happening.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 20:56

Well, in like, my example, right? I shut down.

Colette Jane Fehr: 20:59

Yeah,

Alex Alexander: 20:59

so I'm just calling that out for people too. Is like the sensation could be

Colette Jane Fehr: 21:03

numb.

Alex Alexander: 21:04

It's literally like I went, like, power down in front of

Colette Jane Fehr: 21:07

Absolutely. And in fact, that's a very common reaction. All of these things are survival mode responses, whether it's fight, flight, fawn or freeze, some people get hypo aroused and they shut down. And some get hyper aroused and they kind of light up. And when I got curious and did my own process with my friend's story, I found that there was a lot of anger, but really more of like, I was offended and insulted, and underneath that, there was just a lot of hurt and sadness, because this friend is someone who has meant a lot to me, right? And then you want to search for what are those themes that might tie back to old wounds. So I was getting a message like, you don't value me. I'm not important. I don't really matter to you. And of course, many of us have other times in our lives, unfortunately that we felt that way. We've been hurt. We felt abandoned or rejected. So when we're aware of that, we can say, oh, okay, that's part of my reaction, because this whole process of self connected communication relies on recognizing that even though the other person, the friend, in this case, has supplied the trigger, the way you react to it is all your own, and we have to really take ownership of that. So once we've gotten curious about our emotions, that anger, that offended, feeling that hurt, those are all messengers and signals that tell us something's happening that warrants attention and it points us to our needs. So if I'm hurt, that means there's a wound that needs healing, which we can do through repair. Right? If I'm angry, that means something's happened that I'm not okay with. I'm really not okay, whatever the explanation, I'm really not okay at 50, almost three years old, having a really, really close friend treat me the way I was treated in this interaction doesn't mean that I can't forgive her or or anything like that if she were to apologize, but it isn't how I would treat a friend, and it isn't okay with me. So my anger is informing me that, hey, this is either something that's going to require a different boundary, or maybe we're not going to be as close anymore, and I don't have to be so angry at her, but I can use my anger as a signal that informs my own behavior. So once I get clear about all of that this is that preparation and that internal connection, then I know what I'm feeling and what I'm needing, and I always encourage people to write it down, which is why I give a tool for that in the book, so that you go into you know, even if you have the paper in your hand. Who cares? But you don't have to. The act of writing it down. Just helps you get crystal clear and confident. And then we want to come forward again in these ways where we're taking ownership of the experience, right? This happened when you did this, naming the other person's behavior as neutrally as possible, not blaming, not accusing, and starting by telling somebody, look, this is really hard for me to bring up. I get really uneasy in these conversations, but this relationship is really important to me, and that's why I'm bringing it to you. And when we do that, we're being vulnerable, and we're speaking attachment. We're telling that person, hey, you matter to me. And I'm bringing this up not because I'm coming at you, but because this relationship is important enough that I care to do this uncomfortable thing, and it's very genuine, right? We're not being manipulative. We're just we're saying the piece that we often don't want to say when we're hurting the truth, right, but we want to get that righteous indignation, you hurt me. Well, my pride, my ego, I'm going to put up a wall. I'm not going to answer your call. I'm going to make a little passive aggressive dig the next time I see you. Instead, we're coming to someone saying, Hey, this is really hard for me, but you matter to me. And so I'm going to take a risk to bring something up and just tell you how it made me feel. And I will tell you in my office, because it's the same process with couples and I work with families, that when people do this, 99% of the time, when you're really clear and vulnerable and you speak attachment, people respond shockingly well, and then it feels so good.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 25:46

You know, sometimes an expert in something just drops a gem and just breezes on. Buy it, because to them, it's so normal, but to the rest of us, it's like, Wait, did you really just That was genius, and that's just what happened here. Because when Colette just mentions that writing exercise that she has in her book where you can actually script out what you want to say, She guides you through all the parts that could be so helpful to so many of us. If this kind of confrontation gives you serious anxiety, that tool alone might be worth picking up The Cost of Quiet for you, but somebody who has read the entire book, trust me, you will get way more out of it than that. That exercise. I mean, that could be a game changer. Now I want to be honest with you, when I talk about having those conversations with friends, something I didn't mention in the episode, just because I didn't really think about it until afterwards, is that I'm often practicing what I'm going to say when I have these kinds of conversations. Sometimes it's really focused. Sometimes I'm standing in front of a mirror saying things out loud, and sometimes it's just me doing the dishes and throwing some phrases around like I'm not trying to robotically script it. I'm not trying to say, I love you. I value you. Our friendship means so much to me. I feel this way. I don't want it to feel rehearsed, but I am just trying to work through it in my head. I'm trying to throw out different versions and what feels the easiest to say. This is like a public speaking tactic. This is exactly what public speakers do, and we can all do it in the car, sitting on the couch, in the mirror, in the shower, if you have a big conversation coming up, try getting the words out to a point where it feels a little easier for them to come out of your mouth. And the more that I've done that, the more that it has become second nature. That's the whole point. Like Colette said, you're building a muscle. Now I have one other thing I want to flag, because Colette is about to talk about all these various beliefs that we hold about our friendships, that like she values me and this friendship, and how she's questioning that, and while she's talking about it, my brain is firing alarm bells. I'm like, Yes, love this, because what is happening is that we're talking about something I call story roots, specifically what we experience when we have evidence against one of our story roots, but we're holding on to it anyways. Now story roots are part of my roots, of connection framework. And if you want to right now dive in deeper. You're like Alex, tell me more. Head to Episode 12. But if you want the fullest breakdown in one place that I've ever done, it's in my book. Links for both Colette's and my book are in the show notes.

Alex Alexander: 28:59

I'm not a hider like I am known for having conversations like this with

Colette Jane Fehr: 29:03

that's awesome. That's awesome.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 29:06

I know, for better or for worse, that if something happened and they have that gut uncomfy feeling like I will bring it up at some point. They know it's coming, that I will bring it up. But I just want to say for anybody listening, whether I've not read a book or taken a course or done anything, just like naturally, I always go in with the "Hey. Our friendship really matters to me. I really want us to find a solution to this kind of mindset." And I'll say that I've never... that's a lie... one time, one time, and I think she had just decided she was done and she didn't want to do the work. But every other time, whether it's like a small thing or a big thing, I've had a positive outcome. Now that's not to say that everything just goes immediately back to the way it was. Right. Sometimes there's kind of a period where we have to rebuild trust, or we have to adjust to a new boundary that came up, or something like that. There's definitely, yeah, like an adjustment period afterwards, but I've pretty much always had a positive interaction for anybody who's listening,

Colette Jane Fehr: 30:13

yeah, yeah. And I'm so glad that you have been doing that intuitively, because it really makes a huge difference. And this is like an emotional muscle, doing this, bringing these things up. You're already using this muscle, and have been for a long time. But for you guys who are listening, you know, if this is something that feels so daunting, it does to a lot of people. It's natural that conflict can feel a little scary because it can feel as though it's a threat to the relationship, and for most people, it's somewhat uncomfortable, mostly because we're not accustomed to doing this. But once you start to build that muscle, just like going to the gym and doing bicep course. Curls. Eventually the weight you were lifting gets easy and you're going, oh my god, I can't believe these bicep curls used to be hard. Now you can lift more. And the more you do this, the easier it becomes, the less you dread it, and the more you see that much of the time it does go well. Now some people, there are so many scenarios where people have done no work, they have low self esteem, they're reactive. They had a bad day. Whatever the case, there will be those times that no matter how vulnerable and honest and how much you're signaling safety, somebody doesn't react great. But the empowerment you feel in your own body from just addressing things and not holding on and not suppressing, because we know emotional suppression can actually kill us. Has such physical consequences. It feels so good to do that, and once this muscle is conditioned that even when you don't get a good response, you might be like, Wow, that was a disappointment, but it's not going to rock you the way you might think it would. We tend to fear these conversations more out of predictive anticipation of them going badly than what happens in reality.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 32:07

Well, I was gonna say, too I talk about this kind of concept I have of like a friendship culture, right? What is expected and normalized. And when you have a newer friend, if they aren't doing this type of repair with other friends, and you go to do this, they may be like, Whoa, what's happening. But once you go through this process a few times, it becomes very normal. And now it's to the point where, you know, like so many things, don't even have to get to some big blow up. It could just be a little thing,

Colette Jane Fehr: 32:37

yes?

Alex Alexander: 32:37

And it's like, okay, let's just talk about now.

Colette Jane Fehr: 32:39

Yes.

Alex Alexander: 32:39

let's just talk about now. So it doesn't build the pattern.

Colette Jane Fehr: 32:42

Alex, that is exactly it. This is the point, and this is how I sell men on couples therapy. I'm like, look, the more you communicate, well, the less you have to communicate. Yeah, these conversations are not long. You're not going to spend all your time fighting and recycling old issues. You learn to be very efficient and very clear and address little things as they arise. Apologize if someone's feelings were hurt. It's not about your intentions. It's just about impact and carry on. And in fact, you bring up a great issue with new friends. Because a couple years ago, I joined a new book club in my neighborhood, but I didn't know any of the ladies in it. I live in a big, big community that's almost like its own city. Love, yeah, yeah. And it's, there's 2425 women in this book club, and there were some people that I really connected with, you know more than others, or that I've gotten to know more than others. And I have a thing about people being late where I really don't like it to me, it feels very disrespectful of others time. I know there are people who are routinely late, it's just something I don't have a ton of patience for, and it does make me feel disrespected. So early on in the friendship, there were plans for a group of us to get together outside of book club, and we'd gotten together several times, and this one friend is always late, and the old me, I wouldn't have said anything at all, but I tuned in inside and connected to myself and realized I was already starting to resent the behavior, and I really liked this girl, and that maybe saying something wasn't going to change anything, but I needed to do it for me. Otherwise I wasn't going to be able to go on with the friendship, because I was going to start to kind start to kind of secretly hate her, which is ridiculous. So I used my own process. I said something. We hadn't been friends that long, so I felt a little shaky doing it, but it went great. I just kind of explained to her, like, Look, I'm not making you wrong or bad. I'm just telling you how I feel when that happens, that it does create frustration. I do feel disrespected. You know that maybe we're going to have to come up with some kind of collaborative solution, that if we say we meet at three, I'm going to show up at 320 I'm going to mark 320 right, or something. And she understood she was apologetic, and it's led to many conversations and also jokes about the fact that she's kind of late, but she's made a real effort not to be and this is a problem in her own life that's caused issues and her marriage and right, it's not just me, but the point was, instead of holding on to that and muttering under my breath and being irritated every time I went to meet her, I told her in a way that wasn't critical, that wasn't blaming, I took ownership, and I said, this is how this thing makes me feel, right? This is about me and my reaction. I don't have to lecture her and tell her why lateness is rude and I don't appreciate. At that behavior. And how can you be late as a woman in her 50s? And, you know, how do you hold down a job like that's not the way to come forward. That doesn't work with anybody. They're just gonna get defensive.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 37:23

I as a, okay, so I'm you're talking about me. You're talking about me. I'm a slightly late person.

Colette Jane Fehr: 37:32

Okay, has anyone ever addressed it with you? Yeah?

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 37:35

Oh, absolutely. And I'm very mindful of it, right? I try really hard. But what I was thinking when you were talking about that, is, like it opened so much possibility for vulnerability to on her end, like on my end, to be like, Hey, listen, these are the things I am trying like I'm going to put all of our future things in my calendar for 15 minutes early, because then maybe I'm five minutes early, and I probably have some text message I could respond to if I feel like I'm going to be late. I promise I will text you well ahead of time. You know,

Colette Jane Fehr: 38:09

it's exactly the conversation we had, Alex, yeah, and she opened up about how it's been a real struggle for her. It's caused issues in her marriage, and she has a great marriage, and how she knows it's something she needs to work on. And you know, then I didn't feel so upset or disrespected, like it turned into a really great dialog, and I happen to be someone who's usually 15 minutes early. So you know, part of it was acknowledging that if you're 15 to 30 minutes late and I'm routinely 15 minutes early, I'm waiting a long time, and neither one of us has to be bad or wrong. It's just, let's work on this collaboratively, and if you have a vulnerable conversation where you're honest in a tactful, respectful way, and you focus on yourself and your own inner experience instead of the other person's wrongness, you really get a good outcome a lot of the time.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 39:04

Yeah, yeah, I'm a five to 10 minute late person.

Colette Jane Fehr: 39:08

So

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 39:09

30 is a rough transition five to 10 is me, just like not thinking I can get one more thing done before I walk out the door totally, which is generally my problem. So when we were talking about this whole your self connected framework,

Colette Jane Fehr: 39:24

yep,

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 39:25

I had two questions.

Colette Jane Fehr: 39:26

Tell me

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 39:27

which are, if somebody goes to address this, maybe, like, the weakness is a good example. And this has been happening for a long time, maybe years, you know, and it's just been building inside. When you go to address it with someone, should you say that it's a pattern?

Colette Jane Fehr: 39:45

So, okay, this is why, in an ideal world, we want to start to address things as we go, because once it's built up, there tends to be so much that it's hard to stick to the issue at hand as much as possible. You want to make it about the thing that just happened. So I would say, then, if somebody is receptive, then we could say, you know, this isn't the first time. What we want to know, though, is that in general, it is very hard for people to hear feedback about themselves. Most people are sensitive to that shame. Triggers happen very, very easily. Now, you are not responsible for how somebody else receives you if you're doing your part to come forward in a clear, diplomatic way, but it does help to be mindful that if we come to someone and say, hey, you've been doing this to me for years, this is a pattern, right? They start to feel like they're being finger pointed at, and it's hard not to get defensive, which breaks down the whole interaction I talk about in my book The four top responses that destroy communication. And I call them the bad communication report card because they're 3d and an F, right? And it's defensiveness is such a biggie. Distancing, right? Just pulling away, whether you shut down or you just ice someone out. Dismissiveness, this this is what I got in my first marriage all the time. It was like, calm down. This isn't a thing. Why are you making this a thing? It's not a big deal. You're being dramatic. You're being irrational, right? That is never going to make somebody feel good about opening up to you. And then the F is for fixing. We all have that impulse to problem solve. Nobody wants that the point of communication is to connect, is to feel heard, is to try to understand, is to be curious and accepting and to hear each other's impact and repair. Because all relationships, couples, family, friendships, everything, are series of ruptures and repairs. If you are close to someone, they will step on your toes, figuratively speaking, they will hurt you. It's inevitable. But if we can come forward and say, Hey, this thing just happened, it hurt my feelings, I'd like to tell you about it. You're really important to me. You. I'm just sharing the impact it had. That's all. I want us to be good. I want us to be collaborative, right? And we get a good response, then we might say, you know, I'm finding that some frustration has built, because this has happened before, and it's on me that I didn't address it sooner, right? The more you talk about you, your inner world, your emotions, why you are the way you are, and the less you blame and accuse and project your story, the more successful the dialog will be. And really, that's more honoring of you. It's a cop out and even a form of avoidance, which I point out in the book too, to criticize someone else, we all want to do it, right? Why did you do this? You didn't call me back. You said you do the dishes, and you didn't. You were 15 minutes late when you told me, Alex, oh, sorry, 10 minutes that you were going to work on it, and you were still late, right? Immediately, we have criticism, and we're going to get defensiveness almost guaranteed, unless this person is Jesus Christ reincarnate, you know. And just Mother Teresa has the patience of a saint. It's just not human nature. So ideally one thing, and then if the conversation opens and deepens, like what you described with your friend, then we can say, hey, this has happened before, and I should have said something sooner.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 43:32

And then my other question that came up is, let's say, like, that situation where I shut down in front of my friend, and maybe she noticed and wanted to bring up how she felt. What are your thoughts? If somebody wants to maybe, like, bring it up in the moment, and they haven't necessarily done this entire internal process, or maybe, maybe they're just really speedy, and they can do that in like 30 seconds.

Colette Jane Fehr: 43:58

Yeah. Okay, so I do think in time, as you do this more and more, there will be times that you can connect to the more vulnerable feelings in the moment. But if you're too triggered by something, it's just physiological that we're in survival mode and we're not thinking clearly, and it might be best to wait until you're more adept at this, because it reduces the chances that it comes out like, what's wrong with you? Why are you shutting down, right or like, why are you acting like this? Why are you not saying anything? And we have a thing called neuroception, which means in an instant, we can pick up on what's happening with someone else, whether they're signaling safety or danger. In like 1/600 of a second, it's in the facial expression, it's in the body language. So we don't know why the person's upset, but we can tell when something's off, so if we are going to address something in the moment, it's always best to just get curious. Hey, is something wrong? You know what's going on? And I don't know. I'm kind of confused. Right back to your feelings. Could we talk about what's happening, and if it hurts worse than that, or there's something deeper to it, then you can explore that later and readdress. But ideally, when we really get into something that's hurt us in a way or disappointed us, we're spending some time processing first.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 45:25

Is it worth it in the moment? You know, if you maybe somebody wants to bring it up and you haven't processed it, to maybe acknowledge, like, Hey, I do want to do the repair. Like, yes, I did shift. I need

Colette Jane Fehr: 45:37

some time

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 45:38

crazy that you as my friend can tell that I love that. But I don't really know the answer yet, but I do want to talk it through, but I got to think about it a little bit something

Colette Jane Fehr: 45:47

actually that's perfect, that is literally perfect. And this is what I try to work with my couples to do same rules apply in all relationships. It's just being really honest about what is you know, I tell people a lot. I love this metaphor, for some reason, it just seems to click that. Because maybe you don't have this problem as a younger person, but I can no longer watch TV without closed captions, like I can't tell what they're saying half the time. I've gotten so dependent on them. We think people know what's going on with us, but we don't have closed captions. It isn't clear, and we almost need to communicate as though we do that we're literally transcribing exactly what's going on inside because communication is so highly invalid, even the words spoken are only 7% of communication, and we hear people through our wounds. Yes, Isn't that wild? 7%

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 46:44

okay,

Colette Jane Fehr: 46:44

yes, yes, do the words are so little of it. It's the safety, it's the danger, it's our own personality, are, how hungry we are, our old wounds, right? I'll hear in my office all the time, for example, people who had a really manipulative parent or sibling or former spouse in the present with their partner, something will happen, and their immediate go to is your. Manipulating me. And a lot of the time, I'm not saying there aren't manipulative people, but most of the time, that prediction, that story isn't about the partner, it's about the people who were in a manipulative in the past. So we've really got to the goal of communication is to connect, clear up misunderstandings, acknowledge that ruptures happen, you're gonna have a physiological reaction, right? You don't know why you shut down. You did. It was human. It was real. So saying to someone, hey, you're right. Something's happening. I don't even know what's going on with me yet. I want to talk about it, but I need some time to just process it. First is so good and healthy

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 47:51

Well, I think especially in friendship, because we have all these narratives out there about how it should be easy, and if it's not easy, then just move on to the next one, as if making a this, I talk about this all the time, like, as if making a new friend isn't also work, work. You know, you can, you can choose the work of repair, or you can choose the work of making a new friend, or you can choose the work of going through life alone, which is also hard. They're all work. Choose your work.

Colette Jane Fehr: 48:17

Exactly. Choose your work. Choose your hard and going through life alone is really not a viable alter. You got to have connections somewhere. We know loneliness kills more than obesity and cigarettes. That is researched and proven, which is wild, if you think about it. So that's not to say we let a friend trample all over us, but no, not to be so quick to you know, rule people out with an off the cuff judgment, at least have the conversation, find out what's happening, and then you have information with which you can make informed decisions about how close you want to be or how much you want to tolerate, because I do think boundaries are important too,

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 48:59

absolutely, absolutely. But you know, don't just make a snap judgment when you when you don't know, you don't know, your brain has made up a story,

Colette Jane Fehr: 49:07

yes, and that's actually Alex, really the number one place I see things go wrong, and that in communication, people tend to lead with their stories, right? So if this friend who hurt me around my book launch, if I were to go to her and say, and there's a part of me that wants to do this right, because it was so hurtful and offensive, and say, I really cannot believe the response I got from you when I asked you to buy a couple books and come to my launch party like I am in shock. What were you thinking that was so rude. How could you treat me like that when we've been friends for 30 years, there's a part of me, a protective part of me that wants to be like, how could you do this to me? Right? And I'm allowed to be angry and hurt and offended and feel disrespected and feel confused, but if I come forward and say, you know, I don't know what your reaction was about, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it landed really painfully for me. I was really confused and surprised and hurt by your response, and I'm making an effort to come forward with that because this friendship really matters to me, and I'd like to repair it by being honest with you. I'm not guaranteed she gives me a satisfying answer or that what, but I'm gonna feel good, because I'm coming forward to the table like an emotionally mature adult, and I'm advocating for myself instead of self abandoning,

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 50:38

yeah, and you're showing up and saying, like, Hey, I am willing to do the work, right? It's like, yeah, you're willing to go do the the reps in the gym

Colette Jane Fehr: 50:45

exactly, and keep those muscles strong.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 50:48

Yeah. I loved the contrast there of the two options. I think that's going to be so helpful for people to hear one versus the other. Because when you were saying the first one in my head, I was like, Oh my gosh, yeah, I have, like, heard this. I talk about this on the podcast a lot my DMs and my I have, like, a voice memo option for people are, like, a confessional

Alex Alexander: 51:12

I get so many, so many messages from people. And the thing is, if you want to say that, write it in a Notes app, send it to me, write it in your journal. Do something right? Like, it's fair to want to say that, but it's not helpful to say it to that person. Right in my head, I was like, Oh my gosh. I get like, 20 DMS like this a day.

Colette Jane Fehr: 51:33

Yes, right, and you're right, and I love that people are bringing that to you, because that is how we feel. It's human. We're hurt, we're angry, we're offended, we feel disrespected, we feel unimportant, we're shocked that someone we love could make us feel so badly. So it's very human. And the biggest reason not to come forward that way is that you're not going to get your needs met. Most likely what you need is repair, reassurance, right? Recovery, a reminder that, hey, I'm sorry I messed up. You Do matter to me, right? In an ideal world, my friend would say, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize that I was. Being like that. I'm really sorry. This friendship is important to me too, and I'm just so sorry that I hurt you, and I'll be able to move on from it if I get that kind of repair. So let me for myself, even come forward in a way that gives this person a chance of meeting me in that place of connection and receptivity.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 52:32

Well, I'm obviously hoping all the best for your conversation.

Colette Jane Fehr: 52:37

I'm gonna leave you with DM Alex and let you know how it goes.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 52:41

Do it. We're getting to the end of our recording, but I would be remiss if I did not bring up one final thing from your book, which is good girl. Itis because this permeates so many female friendships. When I was reading that section of your book, I wanted to be like, can I, if you need to sell that concept as a friendship book, you let me know. I will write you pages and pages for your book proposal. Can you talk about good girl itis,

Colette Jane Fehr: 53:12

yeah, it's so big, it's so powerful. So I call it good girl-itis because it is like a disease that we're all infected with, and we don't even realize it to some degree, because it's so pervasive in society that we're raised to be good, to be nice, that being a good woman still, even though we're so powerful as women, means you're needless and selfless, and that it's even noble, right? The more you put yourself last, the more of a great friend, wife, mother, worker, boss you are. And it's a really dangerous concept, because it actually encourages us, outside of our awareness, often, to put ourselves so far behind everything else that we don't show up for ourselves at all. And then, is it any wonder that we're exhausted, that we're depleted, that we're resentful, that we can become passive aggressive? It's really not healthy to do that. It is not selfish to think of yourself. Of course, we want to consider other people, but our primary task is to take care of and to parent ourselves in a loving, nurturing, healthy way. So the antidote to good girl itis is that we're considering other people, right? We want to be good citizens of the world, good friends and all of that, but that all roads come back to checking in with ourselves and asking, you know, we all have a little girl inside, and I talk about this a lot in the book, too, that that little girl that you once were she's still in your body, even as it ages and gets wrinklier and wrinklier as time goes On, that little girl's in there and she needs you. And if we don't check in with that part of us and say, Hey, how do you feel about this? You know, what's it like for you to have said yes to, I don't know, five social engagements this week, when you've worked 12 hours a day and you're exhausted because you feel like you're not going to be a good friend if you don't go. Is this a case where it really makes sense to be doing that, or would it be okay to honor your own needs and say to a friend, hey, I'd love to be there. I just can't. Can I make it up to you by buying you lunch? I'm just making up a scenario, right? But we have got to honor ourselves. And as women, we have to not frame that as selfishness, because checking with you is really, really important too. We tend to treat a stranger more kindly than we treat ourselves.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 55:46

I just, I think of I read that part of your book, and was, you know, underlining and highlighting and writing like yes in the margins, and even though you are more focused on romantic relationships like this applies so much to friendship, because I think about this all the time, right? So many women are doing an insane amount of emotional labor for everyone else in their life, if they have children, if they are a sister, a daughter, a wife working like you, are doing so much work for everyone else. And so then I think what happens is we go to our friend hangout like girls night, and we think to ourselves, okay, well, these people are people who are very practiced in that emotional labor. And I would love for someone to just hold me emotionally for 10 minutes, you know, to listen to me, to validate what I'm going to say to whatever. And everybody there, you get there, and you can also tell that everyone else is exhausted. And then we have this repetitive cycle where you sit in this room and you think like, well, everybody else had a bad week, so I guess I'll just shove it down, and I won't ask for anybody to listen to this thing that happened to me. No, no, it's okay. It's okay. I don't I don't really have anything to share today. Yeah, I'm fine,

Colette Jane Fehr: 57:03

right? Exactly. What a great example. And instead, there's nothing wrong with saying, Hey, I'm exhausted. Said, but I'm totally going to make some space for you, for you, and I'd love to share some things too, right? That there is room for your needs to matter. And that is really the reason I wrote this book, is that our needs matter. They deserve to be spoken. Nobody is coming to save you but you, and it is okay to have emotional needs and friendships as well and to express them, and just when we come forward in this very adult way that honors that little girl inside and is respectful of that other person, our friendships actually get stronger and better.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 57:48

I know that I'm recommending a book about relationships, to everybody here, about friendship, but like people should go listen to it. Should go read it. There are so many gems in this book that apply to all relationships, as we've obviously seen in today's episode. And you know, you talk about this in the episode, how healthy conflict actually creates a deeper, more secure bond. And I think we could both agree we really do want that in our friendships.

Colette Jane Fehr: 58:15

Absolutely, I feel like these are the friends that at the end of the day I want to go out like Thelma and Louise. You know, I I get so much from my female friendships, and it's one of the most rewarding areas of our lives. And I think we're lucky as women, even though we have a history of good girl itis we also has a have a history of celebrating friendship more than men have. Hopefully that's changing, but let's continue that by deepening it with this honesty and really make more secure bonds.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 58:45

Yeah, Colette, thank you so much for coming here today and chatting with us all about your book and everything that's in it. I think you gave so many really just like tangible examples that people can go and implement and try to build that muscle.

Colette Jane Fehr: 58:59

Thank you for having me, and hopefully everybody will go check out the cost of quiet. It really will help you communicate in all areas of your life.

Alex Alexander [Narration]: 59:08

Sometimes I feel like I sound like a broken record, you know, put it on my tombstone, because I say friendship is a skill. I don't even know how many times a day like between hanging out with you here, social media calls I have with various people, just tattoo it on my forehead at this point. Actually, the more think about it. Friendship is entire pack of skills, and all of them together, the showing up, the communicating the repair. That's when you look at someone and you're like, wow, they're really good at friendship. It's just because they've practiced that pack of skills. And this talking about repair and these kinds of conversations with Collette, this is one of those skills, and like any other skill, it only gets better with practice. Here's the thing, I think a lot of us wait to practice something until it's like, big and overwhelming and we just can't take it anymore. There's all this built up feeling, and we're halfway to that volcano that Colette talked about, and we're like, Okay, now I'm going to practice. I wouldn't suggest that. It just puts a lot of pressure on getting it right. What I would suggest is getting better at practicing this in the small moments, the less significant ones, the ones where, if the worst case scenario that you've come up with in your brain. If that happens, the worst case scenario is probably that the next few hangouts are a little awkward before you work through this conversation and find your way back to a new normal. Those are your reps. That's where the muscle gets built. So that is my takeaway for today, practice. Keep practicing and practice on the small ones. In fact, if there's something about a friend that you're just like really frustrated by right now, maybe the next time you hang out, try and have a small conversation about it. And if you want support in doing that, if you want the scripts, the framework, the actual tools for how to have these conversations. Then pick up Collette's book, The Cost of Quiet. There is so much packed into that book that we didn't even get into today. The link is in the show notes, and with that, I'll see you next week.

Podcast Intro/Outro: 1:01:27

Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.