Friendship Matters: Recent Episodes
Chamomile Podcasting
🎙️the podcast that celebrates and grieves friendships as they change🌠
Audio transcripts available at TheFriendshipMatters.com
Researchers have found that most people have between 100-250 established relationships. We have only a few close friends and many more general friends.
It seems like we are - more or less - going to have the same number of people in each layer of friendship throughout our life. Which means when we bring new people into our lives, the rest of our relationships also shift. This is because we have finite brain space and finite time to devote to relationships.
Join me this episode as I share a bit more about Dunbar's number and tell you a bit about my grief.
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Have you ever noticed that people at school, work, or on tv seem to have different sized friendship groups than you? We may have a similar number of friends, but the way people are actually connected seems different. Well, this is what I noticed when my roommate had some friends over on the solstice. And so in this episode I check out the very very basics of social network analysis and graph theory to start thinking about the ways that friendships are structured. Come join the chaos that is my brain!
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The question I had asked myself at the start of this episode was: "How might attachment theory help us better understand our friendship?" Instead it became: "What is security?" "How is security and safety and trust defined?" and "How can we describe this sense of attunement to others?" By the end, it just turned into love letters, written to some really important people in my life.
I think that building strong and healthy relationships takes the form of noticing them and practicing them. If you are willing, come over and join me on TikTok where I am asking you all to share a love letter to someone who brings safety, security, or attunement into your life.
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Attachment Theory (Wikipedia) (Blog)
Adult Attachment (Book) (Article Summary)
The Power of Attachment (Book) (Pie Chart Quiz)
Relational Healing (Zine)
Circle of Security (Video)
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Aristotle thought that certain types of friendships could help us mirror our morals, and in effect help us become better citizens. More present day sociologist use a symbolic interactionist framework to describe how we make meaning out of social interactions. On Sesame Street, we learn that to be a good friend sometimes involves giving up the last cookie.
But at the end of it all, what does "friendship" even mean?
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TipJar to help me pay upcoming guests for their labor!
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Work Cited:
Ancient and Medieval Concepts of Friendship
Close Friendship Among Urban Ethnic-Minority Adolescents
Close Relationships and Happiness Among Emerging Adults
Friendship
Friendship and Development: Putting the Most Human Relationship in Its Place
Friendship: An old concept with a new meaning?
Friendship Talk as Identity Work: Defining the Self Through Friend Relationships
Friends with Academic Benefits
How many hours does it take to make a friend?
Sesame Street
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Hey folks - the next content heavy episode isn't ready quite yet. But I still wanted to offer you some friendship content. Take it or leave it, today's episode is a mindfulness practice focused on feeling the sensation of health within a friendship that you have/had. If you are up for it, I would love to know what these feelings of safety, joy, and fun are like in your body!
Stay well, xxo Brenna
Visit TheFriendshipMatters.com for a full transcripts.
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This is a follow up to the what is 'health' episode!
It turns out that defining what makes things unhealthy is just as tricky as describing health itself. But by exploring some of the ways people have tried to describe disease and sickness, we can learn more about the ways that healthy relationships may feel.
In this episode I talk about normalcy, pain, grief, adaptation, and survival.
Visit my Ko-fi page for the episode transcript and tip jar!
Referenced Research:
- Health as a Theoretical Concept by Boorse
- Health, Disease, and Illness as Conceptual Tools by Amzat & Razum
- WHO Constitution
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Before we can begin to uncover what makes healthy friendships, we first need to know what it even means to be healthy.
In 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Today's episode focuses on the first half of that sentiment. Listen in as I ponder what it means to be in a complete state of well-being and what the academics have to say about this notion.
By the end of this episode, my working definition of health is that:
- It includes individuals, interpersonal relationships, and our environments.
- It is not stagnant. Which means health is a verb. It is a description of becoming or doing or growing in a direction... rather than a point of achievement.
- It is achievable. And it is achievable for everyone.
- It is not going to have the same meaning at all times. It varies with personal values, life changes, and cultural conversations.
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Referenced Research:
- The Definition of Health: Towards New Perspectives by Leonardi
- Health, Disease, and Illness as Conceptual Tools by Amzat & Razum
- It's time to reconsider how we define health... by Krahn et. al.
- WHO Constitution
- CDC Social Determinants of Health
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Welcome to Friendship Matters, a new podcast that explores how we make, keep, and end friend relationships!
When you think of the culture and community that you are trying to build and actualize, what does it include? For me, we can't have a more just world without addressing how we exist in our friendships. And while I personally love my friends, it is still really complicated sometimes to be in relation with other people. As I embark on this podcasting journey, I hope to learn and share more about how we can show up for ourselves and for our friends in a complicated world. Join me?
Visit TheFriendshipMatters.com for the episode transcript and tip jar!
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thefriendshipmatters/message
Friendship Matters is a chance to explore research and theory related to interpersonal relationships. This project is a chance to celebrate friendships as a core type of relationship, and to strengthen our skill sets in building connection with other people. Join me every second and fourth Friday this Spring as I explore how friendships work.
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Get the episode transcript at TheFriendshipMatters.com
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thefriendshipmatters/message