Ep 8: (Part 2): Healing the Friendship Wound | Melanie Curtis & Shannon Lee

What does it actually take to keep a friendship for 20 years? In Part 2 of this conversation, best friends Melanie Curtis and Shannon Lee show us — through wine, tears, ayahuasca, and a whole lot of radical honesty.

In this episode of The Best Friend Project, host Rachel Joy Swardson sits down with lifelong best friends Melanie Curtis and Shannon to unpack the real mechanics of a friendship built to last. They get honest about the moments most of us hide: the small confession over a bottle of wine that could've quietly become resentment, the hard conversation in the back seat of a car when heartbreak made one of them pull away, and the shadow parts of ourselves we'd rather no one ever see.

Together they explore the difference between putting yourself first, putting the other person first, and the reframe that changes everything — putting the friendship first. You'll hear why coming forward with an uncomfortable truth builds more trust than staying silent ever could, how deeper healing work in one area of life can quietly make you a better friend in all of them, and why so many of us were never taught that platonic love deserves the same intention we pour into romance and career.

In This Episode: 

• The wine bottle confession how one small moment of honesty ("that was me") became a 20-year lesson in choosing the friendship over your ego
• What "shadow work" really means and why looking at the parts of ourselves we'd rather hide is the secret to showing up as a better friend
• Putting yourself first vs. putting the friendship first 
• Why coming forward builds trust like nothing else — Shannon on how plant medicine and deep inner work helped her see her own patterns, own her part, and find peace when a letter went unanswered
• Why friendship breakups can hurt more than romantic ones 

Connect with Melanie and Shannon:

Melanie on Linkedin

Melanie on Instagram @melaniecurtis11

Website MelanieCurtis.com

Shannon On Instagram @luacheialuminosa and @greatspiritfarm

About The Best Friend Podcast

The Best Friend Podcast is where original friendship research meets real-life stories. Host Rachel Joy Swardson, founder of The Best Friend Project, investigates how women find, make, lose, and keep the platonic loves of their lives through original data, personal experience, and candid conversations.

To learn more, visit The Best Friend Project.co . While you're there, discover your Friendship Archetype by taking the  Friendship Survey We'd also love to stay in touch—come say hello on Instagram  and Facebook (we will follow you back!)  If you need to reach us, you can always email us at Hello@TheBFProject.com.

Chapters: 

0:00 Previously On: Have I Loved My Friends Fully?

1:05 Do You Have a "Friendship Type"?

2:30 Becoming the Safe Container for Each Other

3:20 The Wine Bottle Story: Honesty Over Ego

5:20 Shadow Work: The Parts of Us We Hide

7:00 Pulling Away During Heartbreak

8:30 The Backseat Conversation

10:30 You Can't Cry With a Closed Heart

12:10 When You Need to Put Yourself First — and Say So

14:40 The Reframe: Put the Friendship First

15:20 Red Flags & Why Coming Forward Builds Trust

16:40 Ayahuasca & Healing the Friendship Wound

18:40 The Letter That Got No Reply

21:00 Why Friendship Breakups Hurt More

22:00 How Deep Healing Made Me a Better Friend

24:00 Society Deprioritizes Friendship — Let's Change That

26:00 Childhood Friendship Trauma & the Survey Data

27:00 Connect With Melanie & Shannon

29:20 Rachel's Reflection: Always Put the Friendship First

#TheBestFriendProject #WomensFriendships #FemaleFriendship #FriendshipBreakup #BestFriends #FriendshipGoals #AdultFriendships #HealingTheFriendshipWound #ShadowWork #EmotionalHealing #Vulnerability #FriendshipAdvice #WomenSupportingWomen #PlantMedicine #Ayahuasca #PersonalGrowth #Boundaries #IntentionalLiving #Podcast #FriendshipPodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Previously on the Best Friend Project. Amidst my own personal heartbreak, which has led to the inspiration for this entire project, I've been left wondering if I have openly loved my friends as much as I could.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Yes, we had that initial soul connection, and we followed it up with 20 years of high integrity, follow-through, keeping our word, cleaning up our conflicts, like really showing up.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

One of the most priceless gifts that we can give is to let them be who they are and to love them as they are.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Look around and you'll see them. Women. Out walking, in restaurants, at the airport, stores, driving in their cars. Women are everywhere. And every time you see a woman, you're seeing someone who has, at some point, struggled with a friendship. Because it's one of the most complicated, meaningful, and rewarding relationships of our lives. But how to do friendship well isn't talked about enough. So let's start. I'm Rachel Schwartzon, former private investigator and TV journalist, and now host of the Best Friend Project, where we use original data and real stories to better understand how women find, make, and keep their friends. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

And so love is not unconditional abuse.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Correct. Oh, right. But also I didn't honor our friendship by being honest with her. And that's something that I'm just completely perplexed by. Like what held me back from being honest? And like when I really, really peel back the layers, I feel like I have a friendship type, like I have a dating type. And I think that there's a lot about her that reminds me of my old high school squad that was not the best time of my life. And anyway, so I feel like she's my friendship type, but I think deep down I knew that that friendship wasn't like serving either one of us well anymore. And there's probably a reason I felt bad I couldn't be honest with her because I didn't feel safe with her.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

I think you speak to something very important to highlight is that yeah, we never want to position I mean, whether we're talking about Shannon and my friendship, it's not just rainbows and puppy dogs all the time. It's when a breakdown occurs or when in our bodies we feel dissonance or confusion or feel like our feelings got hurt or something, maybe we're not sure. Of course, we step into those conversations with each other, trusting that the other will meet us with kindness and love, and the assumption that we are always for each other. Meaning, I she knows if I'm bringing up something that is causing me pain, it is not it, it's not about her. You know what I mean? It's not an attack. It's not an attack. In a good way, it's it's not about her. It's like she's the safe container, and vice versa. Shannon brings something to me, even if it's something I'm doing, I'm the safe container to receive her. That is not easy work, right? You have to grow into that. You know, when I joke about one of the first stories, Shannon, about the wine bottle. Back, this is years and years and years and years ago. We were at Shannon's house, a party, and there was like a bunch of friends there. It was great, having a lovely, wonderful evening. And I think, I don't know, my boyfriend at the time, we ended up, we went into the kitchen and we opened just opened another bottle of wine and cool. And then Shannon, you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah, well, there was another, there was another guest there that I love, I loved her, but she had been drinking a little bit too much wine. And she had opened multiple bottles of wine and getting a little bit like out of the zone, you know, a little bit, you know, annoying and rambunctious. And so went in and I noticed that this bottle of wine that I'd kind of been saving for a special occasion had been opened, I was instantly miffed. I was just like, oh, she opened my bottle of wine because I assumed that it was this other girl. And I was more annoyed at her behavior and that she was just kind of being a lush and not being respectful of my wine. And Mel was there, and I said something to her, like, so-and-so open my bottle of wine. And Mel just like white. And she was just like, that was me. And I was like, Oh, well, enjoy. And that's I love that you opened that bottle of wine. This is the special occasion. I love you so much. It was like just like flipped 180. And then that was an opportunity for me to look at myself. Like, it's not about the wine. It's about the relationship. And therein come back to the template of, well, how can I map this feeling I have for Mel and wanting her to have whatever she wants of mine and share it with like, why couldn't I be that way with this other girl? Interesting. There's the shadow in myself. And so part of what makes our friendship work is that Mel and I do the work to look at our own shadow. To look at like the parts of ourselves that we kind of don't like, you know, or that we don't want people to see about us or know about us. Like I wouldn't have gone up to that girl and said, I was really mad at you for opening my wine, but I wasn't mad at Mel, you know, if Mel did it, like that's a shadow. Like I wouldn't want to have, I wouldn't want people to see that or know that about me. So it's more like the the icky, icky parts of our psyche, our personality, you know, the things that we don't want to acknowledge, that we want to kind of keep in the shadow, keep in the dark. Yeah. So, but you know, that was a great example of the the juxtaposition of love and generosity, and how we kind of get wrapped up around our judgments of other people.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

And how afraid I was to tell Shannon it was me that opened the bottle of wine. This is again, this is like an ancient history type story. This has just happened at the very, very beginning. But why I bring it up is that at the very beginning, we already were being transp, even in our low level of skill and our low level of our own personal healing, our own level of consciousness, we were already being brave enough to be transparent with each other about the hard things. So you talked about going through a divorce, Rachel, for example. And at the time, Shannon is happily in a committed relationship, long-term committed relationship. And I am in deep, deep pain, really just in agony, struggling with that deep anxious attachment stuff and wondering like, why, why can't I find a relationship like that? Like, why won't a man stay for me? Like all these sort of deep, painful, painful uh comments, like inner dialogue around love relationship, right? Heartbreak is very real. We all go through it, we all say different things in our heads when we're in it. But one of the things that was going on for me is that it was very, very hard for me to be around Shannon, to be in connection with her while she had an any friend. It wasn't just her, but any friend that had a really healthy, connected, quote unquote successful, you know, love relationship. And so I started to pull back and just like be more isolating of myself because I just didn't know what to do. I was not skilled enough at that point. This is like, you know, 10, 12 years ago. And so one day, and this is another version of how and why our friendship has the level of integrity that it does and the level of trust and ease and safety that it does now, is because of these stories. One day I'm visiting in Florida. I think we were in Florida. Uh, I live in New Jersey, Shannon lives in Florida. I was visiting, and we were in like the parking lot of some like strip mall, and she and Shannon gets into the back seat. Her husband was in the front seat. I think it was partner at the time, not husband, but regardless, doesn't matter. Long-term partner. She gets in the back seat and she asks me, like, really, like, this is a we're having a we're having a talk, you know, like this is a serious talk. And she asks me, like, if everything is okay. And she acknowledges the distance that she feels from me, right? And I am like, I have to, in honesty, say that, yeah, she's right. There, that that I am distancing myself, and it's for these reasons. I'm sure I did not say it in any way as eloquently as I am today. I'm I was crying, I'm sure. We were both crying, but we were clearing the the pro we were we were putting the problem, bringing it into the light, bringing my pain into the light and bringing her pain into the light, right? Her pain of my removal, right? My withdrawal from our friendship and my pain and just the phase of life that I was in, the thing that really had nothing to do with her, but like something I didn't know how to navigate and didn't include her in helping me navigate until she brought it forward to me. So, like those are good examples of why it's not just that we show up and do fun girls' trips and make funny videos. It's that when this type of stuff gets in between us, we care enough to step into it bravely and clear it.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

I know it sounds really cliche, but in those conversations, especially the one where I got in the backseat, um, there's a there's a heart awareness. Like when you uh don't feel connected to your loved one, whether it's a friend or a partner or a child, you can feel it in your heart. Like it's heavy, it's closed, it's tense. Like if you're connected to the body, you can feel it. And in those conversations, me getting in the backseat, like that's a heart-to-heart conversation. It sounds cliche, but it literally is. It literally is me opening my heart to her and saying, Hey, I see you, I notice something's up. Will you open your heart to me and be honest about what's really going on over there? Because I'm a safe space and we're I'm doing this for us. And she responded with an open heart, which there's where the tears are. You can't cry with a closed heart.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

But the integrity that you've modeled twice now in this call, because Melanie, you could have easily been in the kitchen and been like, I know, I can't believe she opened that wine. And no one would have ever known. Yeah, but exactly like some little lodge in your heart would have been closed, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And uh you would not have had that closeness. Janin, you wouldn't have been able to do that. And then this conversation in the cars, Janan, you could have so easily been like, uh, why isn't my friend happy for me? You know, she's seen me struggle too. Like, now I'm finally happy. Why can't she be happy for me? And you know, instead you went into her instead of away from her. And I think that that is um profoundly important because what you've both also said uh sorry crying, but like you've put the other first in both situations. Like you didn't put yourself first, like self-protection Mel in the wine thing, and Shannon self-protection, you know, you went I'm gonna put her first.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

I just wanna pop in, Rachel, because I I think that's a concerning view. I uh I do think it is, because at times in real friendship, we must communicate how we are prioritizing ourselves and what we need. Yeah. Right. If I were to give an example of this, here's just a small example. I know, Shannon, you have some examples of this, how you have something that you are uniquely going through in your individual experience, and you share it with the friend, and it impacts the friendship, not necessarily a negative way, but it impacts it. And so that getting the your friends on board with these things. So one's just quick example from my world is like getting back, you know, after a divorce, I'm sure you understand this, Rachel. And I'm plenty of people listening again have gone through this. Getting back out, dating, this and that, having iter iterative relationships and additional heartbreaks and just kind of the mess of dating and all that stuff, right? One of the things that a chapter of my dating life was I basically was like, I need to, and this is just me to my to myself, I felt kind of compelled to stop talking to my friends about anyone I dated because I would never have, I felt like I was never gonna learn how to trust my own judgment. Interesting. Because I had a lack of self-trust because of the issues and challenges I had had in love relationships up to that point. And so I basically, in service to the friendship, I let my core friends know, Shannon included, that yo, I'm gonna be in a period where I'm just I'm not gonna, I'm not talking about this right now. And of course, we had enough trust and safety at that point where it's like, cool. Yep. You know, it doesn't mean they never ask. It doesn't mean they, you know, but the point is, is like that's about me. Yep. And she might be like, why don't you want to tell me anything? You know, but there's none of that. But that's a version of me needing to choose for myself, something that I knew was right for me and me alone.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

But you communicated that. Yes. You know, and that again is the most important thing. Like you, you went, okay, I need to, you know, because to your point, sometimes you do need to put yourself first and not the other person. And so I think there's not, you know, nothing is always a never, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

So if I could reframe what you said, Rachel, I would say that we put the relationship first because it's not one over the other. Oh, sometimes it's it's it is about us. Yeah. But there's this unity versus this separation. Yes. And I also want to circle back to something that Mel said or that you said, Rachel, was with the wine thing, like she could have been like, oh my gosh, I can't believe she did that too. And like nobody would have ever known. But she came forward in that trust, in in that integrity. That it's not only that that she like when in that act of coming forward, that builds trust. That builds trust like nothing else. Like to know that she could have called his phone under the carpet and I never would have known, but she came forward, like I trust that. Yep. And this, I think, is something really important to look for in your friendships. Like, for example, briefly, I have a friend that I won't say a whole lot about it because I don't want to out out her, but we were at her place, and she basically was like, Don't tell my husband that we did this today. That's a huge red flag to me. Yep. Like, you're gonna lie to your husband, then you're gonna lie to me, you're not my friend. Yep. So I think it's important, like when you're talking about selecting friends and where you put people in your inner circle or you know, your outer rings, is like recognizing how they treat other people in their life as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Well, it goes back to that integrity, integrity, integrity, you know, that that you were talking about too. Shannon, in your experience with ayahuasca, have you like has that have you seen people have sort of transformative relations or like awakenings about their friendships or have you learned anything about friendship from ayahuasca or seen other people have like maybe an epiphany where they aren't friends with someone or are friends of someone? Okay, for sure. Can you share any of them? Yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

I can also speak from my own journey. Like I've seen it happen with a lot of other people too, like healing the friendship wound, as we call it. Um, I've had significant friendship wounds from earlier in my life. And I had several ceremonies in a row where I asked, why did this just not respond? Like we went to kindergarten together, we rode the bus together, we did everything together, we rode our horses together, we've been friends for 20 years. Like I had that elementary school friend, and all of a sudden they just stopped responding to me, wouldn't call me for six months and was like, wow, you're my best friend. I just went through a major breakup and you didn't call me back. Like, ouch. And oh, I was just busy, you know. So again, no integrity to really tell me what was going on. But what the medicine, what ayahuasca, and I want to just clarify like, please, I don't necessarily think that ayahuasca said this. Ayahuasca opens a door for you to understand understand and talk to other spiritual beings. For me, it's like Jesus and Mother Mary and my guides and my angels. Like, I'm talking to deities or beings that have wisdom and awareness beyond what I can see. And so they they told me, like, well, remember that time you kind of dropped your dog off at her house to watch her while you're going on vacation and you brought food for your dog, but you she's a dog sitter. Like you never paid her, you never offered to pay her. Like, you know, oh, remember that time you did this? Like, I got to see where I was just expecting someone to do something for me. And it was painful to see, like, oh, I was an asshole. I was a real asshole. Okay. And then I sent the letter, like, hey, we haven't talked in a long time. Would love to clear some things up with you. We have a long-standing friendship and no response to the letter. So, like, okay, I did what I could do. You know, I tried, I got really clear on who I used to be as a friend. And I circle back to Mel, like, hey, I'm so sorry. All the times I did XYZ and it was completely insensitive. And she's like, whatever. Like the wine bottle. I don't care. I love you. You know. Um so I've seen a lot of people get clear about what they're responsible for in these ceremonies because it's very illuminating to see this the facets of who we are that we don't kind of want to see. Again, referring back to that shadow side of like, I don't look at my shadow on the ground. I look, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

So yeah, absolutely. These these medicines and these sacraments can be very helpful in repairing these relationships of all sorts.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

And it's fascinating to be able to revisit things that you didn't know that you did. And then how did that feel for you, though, to be in a position to want to have that closure and clarity and explain it and maybe take that old friendship to the next level if you had been able to acknowledge these things that she couldn't say that maybe had caused her distress. But then you never got a chance to even have that conversation. Like, do you feel like that's a missing thing that's still out there, or were you able to get closer just by writing a letter?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Uh, it definitely hurt, you know. And I think there were probably a couple of years where I would have dreams about her, which was showing me that it was still an open loop in my psyche. Um, and then eventually it's just like, you know what? I saw her shadow too. Like she didn't call me back. She didn't express herself. She didn't have the integrity to tell me what was going on. And do I want that in my life right now? No, I actually don't. And so I got to see where my longing was ignoring the reality of the wholeness of the situation, not just the good times we had together, but what was also missing for me. And so I just I came to have peace around that. But it takes time and it's definitely painful.

unknown 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

You know, you you write a long, heartfelt letter to someone that you know and they don't get a response. It's like, oh, did they move? It's a different wrong address, or more than more likely than not, just they're done with this relationship. And that's okay. Yeah, you know, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Oh, it's so hard. Friendship, friendship breakups are, I think, more painful than love relationship breakups, personally. It's just like, whoa. And I say this kind of often that I I don't really have a like deep friend wound. I feel quite at ease in friendship. It's like the relationship style that is the most powerful in my entire life. Not discounting my family. My family, I have a great, lovely, wonderful family. Uh, there's plenty of challenges there, but like mostly great, you know what I mean? Um, but like for me, like my friends are the safest container in the world. It's not just Shannon, others also. And I for some reason feel a high level of ease in. In my friendships. Um yeah, Shannon, I'm sure can comment more on how I'm a friend, but like where I feel a high level of, and I've shared tons about this in other podcasts about I keep mentioning my experience in love relationship, but that's where I have had serious sort of deep anxiety, like pain, consistent pain in my life. And so that's where I've had to do a lot more deep healing work with ayahuasca, with therapy, you know, therapy through different friendships and support systems, all that stuff. Um, but I think it's interesting just from the perspective of deep deeper healing, and like, because I'm a humongous proponent of plant medicine work. I've done a ton of it with Shannon, with her mentors, with other. So I'm in that work also, uh, riding her coattails, as it were. She's dragging me, like basically I'm hanging on to her coattails and I'm like bouncing around on the like dirt, you know, like just like in a hilarious, wonderful way, like excited to be dragging on her coattails on the deeper healing part of life. Um, but it's it's worth, I think, for people who have wounds like like attachment wounds in whatever version of relationship they find them, it is worth doing deeper healing work around those things that you can see as consistent pains in your life. Do you consistently say this to friends in your life? Are you consistently feeling this way relative to the friends that you have, relative to your family, relative to love relationships, whatever? It it can be across the gamut, but my doing healing work in this other lane has made me a better friend.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

I'm a way better friend now than I was because I'm that much more grounded in my truth, my authenticity, so I can communicate it when necessary and I can hold a boundary when I need to as well. Yep. Right. And so it's anyway, it's all connected.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Well, and it's that intentionality that you're coming into the friendships with. And I think that, and maybe I just miss the boat when this was talked about in my youth, but I don't know that I've ever been told to put effort into my platonic relationships. Right. You know, romantic love was like the most important thing. And I mean, I when my breakup with my best friend happened, like I have books on marriage, I have books on parenting, I have books on fucking cooking, I have books on, you know, business. I don't have any books on friendship. That's society.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

That's society. I mean, uh, don't get me on my soapbox about women and how society tries to put us in boxes and hold us down. We're told we need to be chosen, we need to, you know, get married, we need to whatever. There's a million things that we're told. You know what I mean? And we're also told just from a professional perspective, that our job matters more, our family matters more, our like and friendship is just automatically really, really deprioritized in a societal, like ideological way. And so I that's another thing I really care to stand for. Again, I put a lot of Instagram comedy content out, but I'm also sharing, you know, ideas and things about what I believe in. And one of the things I champion, I just posted something about this, I think two days ago or something, about how you really want to perform at an elite level or experience yourself at the edges of your capabilities and your potential, then make time for your friends because they're a crucial part of your support system. And nobody gets to like those far edges of anything without meeting challenge. And so we need like a really strong foundational support system in order to do that. And friends are a crucial part of it.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Yep. Yep. And as you touched on, you know, romantic love has been a challenge for you. So that's when you've done the most work. What has shown up time and time and time again in the Best Friend Project survey are childhood friendship traumas. And it's even in grade school. And it's like if you had, you know, bullying or were left out or not invited to the birthday party, it carries forward. And that social insecurity translates into absence of truth and vulnerability and inability to show up because of all, you know, you don't want to repeat that same pain, but you're still repeating that same pain. Um, and that the survey has been absolutely fascinating to me. Um, a majority of women say that they are a good friend, but others aren't a good friend to them. And I'm like, can we just only talk about this for the rest of our lives? Because no times infinity, you know what I mean? So um I could do this all day. I adore both of you. This has been so incredibly helpful for me. And I know that our listeners will value this conversation as much as I have. And for anyone who wants to continue the conversation with Melanie or Shannon or both of them, you can connect with Melanie, Melanie for her amazing 31-day gratitude challenge. This is available to everyone. If you just go to Melaniecurtis.com backslash gratitude challenge, you can find it on Melaniecurtis.com as well. But it's $14 a month or just for the 31 challenge, 31-day challenge. Um, jump into a life that you didn't even know was possible. And you have her encouragement, her support, and levity serving as your personal parachute. Melanie also delivers edge of your seat keynotes for major brands, collaborating with, you know, Red Bull and MasterCard and Weird Al Yankebec, and she's appeared on CBS Evening News and Good Morning America and tons of more places. Her high energy, soulful, thrilling presentation, Dare to Access Your Untapped Potential, will awaken latent gifts buried within your corporate teams or your event attendees. And there's truly something just infectious about her. You can find coaching and booking information at MelanieCurtis.com or follow follow her, as I found her, on Melanie Curtis11 on Instagram for a daily dose of unbridled joy. And Ms. Janon believes that ayahuasca is a master plant and wise teacher who opens the heart, stirs the soul, and ignites wisdom from within. She is not taking new clients at the time of this recording, which is in March of 2026. But if you're interested in her work, please visit greatspiritfarm.org because she will be taking clients in the future. Um, and she is just an incredible, incredible person, friend, woman, uh nature giver teacher. Um everything from Great Spirit Farm is fueled by love and service. Their facilitators receive no financial compensation. All donations go back into expanding access and amen amenities and scholarships through their 501c3. Thank you both so much for being on the show. I appreciate you. And um for anyone who hasn't taken the Best Friend Project survey, you can find it by going to best friendproject.co, no M, just co. Um, we'd love to hear from you. So thank you, ladies.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Rachel, thank you so much. Thank you, Rachel. It's been an honor.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

It's amazing to hear these stories from women like Melanie and Shannon and their friendships. And it's impossible for me to hear them without a filter of absolute regret. I have handled so many things the wrong way. And I think when it's a romantic breakup, you're like, oh, it's just an ex-boyfriend, or it's just an ex-husband. But when it's a friendship breakup, it's ah god, like there's so many women that I want to call and explain that I didn't know. I mean, it sounds so ridiculous. But I didn't know. I mean, I didn't I didn't know myself, I guess. I didn't know these things. I didn't know that that kind of intimate depth relationship was out there. The way Melanie and Shannon have discovered it. The silliness, the seriousness, the commitment. When I started this project in October of 2026, I was just putting signs up in public bathroom stalls around the country. Too humiliated and hurt to go public with the question, how do you make friendship work? And so women scanned the QR code on the postcard and they started to share their stories. Tens of them, then 50, then hundred, no, hundreds and hundreds of women have shared their story. And I've heard so many helpful things, but something I hope I never forget in this journey, on this life, is to put the friendship first. And when Melanie drove that point home after I got it wrong the first time, but drove that point home, you know, it's not sometimes you come first, sometimes they come first, of course it is. But always it's you put the friendship first. Sometimes the friendship needs both of you to step back. And if I had had that maturity and that confidence in my former friendship, I promise you I wouldn't be doing this project. And she and I would be best friends. Um, but I'm here now, and you're here, and um, we're learning together, and that's why I'm doing this. I don't want to ever repeat that mistake. I'm sure I will, but hopefully I can do it going forward with a little bit more grace and understanding um and confidence on both sides. So thank you for listening to this episode. If you have not yet taken the Best Friend Project survey, you can do so at the bestfriendproject.co. There's also a box if you want to be on the show and share your friendship story. I would love to hear from you. Next week, you will hear from a woman named Robin who has an amazing best friend and a very, very poignant story about how they met that taught me a lot about judgment and um how that can cloud our perceptions of people and where that judgment comes from. You know, is it from our arrogance? Is it from our insecurity? So Robin shares all of that and more as she uh invites us into learning about her friendship on the next episode of the Best Friend Project. I hope you will listen to it. As with this one and that one, I love it so much and I learned so much. I'm so grateful to you for being here and listening to this show. And um I appreciate every time you share it with someone, every time you interage with it on social media. This feels like really vulnerable and scary and icky at times. And I know I'm not alone in my friendship struggles. And every time you leave a review or you give a five stars to this podcast or make a comment on social media, it helps me feel less alone and more connected with you. So please keep it up and um thank you so much. Thanks for being here.