Letting Go to Level Up: The Courage to Curate Your Circle

Who's really in your corner? Are the people you call friends actually propelling you forward, or subtly holding you back?

Friendship isn't just a pleasant life addition—it's a critical component of your self-growth journey. In this deeply personal episode, we explore how true friendships affect everything from your stress levels to your life satisfaction. Drawing from psychological research and heartfelt personal experiences, I break down the three core pillars that define authentic friendship: stability over time, positivity in relationships, and mutual cooperation. These aren't just nice-to-haves—they're essential foundations that separate true friends from mere acquaintances.

It is time to take inventory of who truly deserves to be in your circle.  Your future self will thank you for the courage to curate connections that celebrate rather than drain you. 

Resources Used Today:

The Science of Why Friendships Keeps Us Healthy

What is the definition of a good friend?  

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Aboard the Self-Growth Train
• 1:04 The Science of Healthy Friendships
• 5:15 Five Signs of True Friendship
• 7:19 Personal Stories of Letting Go
• 16:14 Recap and Key Takeaways

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hello, my dear passengers, and welcome aboard the Self-Growth Train, a podcast that combines personal stories, opinions and research in order to better guide you through your self-growth journey. My name is Frances Marietti Barapacheco and I am your tour guide. First, I want to say thank you for tuning in to another chapter, episode, whatever you want to call it. I know, okay, my dear passengers, I know that I suck at being consistent and I know that I haven't posted since January, and I'm sorry, okay, like I don't do this stuff on purpose, life be lifing and I suck at being disciplined and consistent, so I'm still working on it. Please bear with me. But, yeah, I thought today maybe it's time to release a new episode, because you haven't released an episode since January. So here we go again. I feel like I don't even know how to do this anymore. Well, my dear passengers, it's time to buckle up those seatbelts as we head into the first stop of the day. That is the topic of the day, and today's topic is friendships. Friendship is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the state of being a friend and, my dear passenger, I know what you're thinking. We're really discussing friendships on a self-growth podcast. But let me tell you, regardless of where you're at in your self-growth journey friendships friendships are going to propel you forward or hinder you and hold you back. So, yes, my dear passengers, today's topic is friendships. So buckle up, because it's gonna be a lot.

Speaker 1: 1:51

For today's episode, I will be using three resources. Two of these resources are articles that I found online, and the last but not least is my own personal stories. The first resource that I'm going to use is an article by the American Psychological Association titled the Science of why Friendships Keep Us Healthy. But first things first. I want to make sure that we're all on the same page.

Speaker 1: 2:16

How do you define a friend, or what constitutes being a friend? How is it different from being an acquaintance? Well, let me tell you, the main difference between being an acquaintance and being a friend is the level of loyalty, trust and mutual benefits that are given in a very affectionate manner. I say affectionate because friendship involves high fives, hugs, maybe even kisses. You don't do that with acquaintances, or if you do, then you do acquaintances a little bit different than I do, but kudos to you Anyway.

Speaker 1: 3:05

Anyhow, as we know, especially if you live in America and with American cultural points of view, there's a high emphasis on romantic love. However, however, scientists have recently has recently taken a kind of exploratory approach to platonic relationships, because it seems that they have the power to affect us positively or negatively, depending on how healthy that relationship is within itself, which means that when you are in a healthy friendship, you know what I'm talking about. You know what those healthy friendships look like. When you are with someone that allows you to be your authentic, 100%, raw self, you are in the presence of someone that is at peace with you. So, therefore, your stress levels are down because you don't have to act like you're anybody else. They accept you for who you are and also, you're not isolated because you don't want to put yourself away from this person that understands you and wants to spend time with you. And, last but not least, you have a higher satisfaction of life. I mean, here's someone that enjoys spending time with you and creating things with you. Why would you not be happy? And I want to make a quick pause.

Speaker 1: 4:36

When I was going through this, I feel it in me. There are some of you out there that don't have that friend, that don't have that person that comes to mind, and I'm going to be honest, like it might be that you have someone that has been with you for many, many years and you're just like well, they're my friend, they've been with me through thick and thin and I'm just going to keep them because they were there when I needed them. But are they celebrating you, are they pushing you forward now? Because if they're not, they're not adding anything to your well-being, they're not adding anything to your potential and they're definitely not adding to your greatness and they're definitely not adding to your greatness. So I know I'm speaking to somebody out there who, when I was talking about that friend and I had my own friend in my head, thinking about that person that is there for me and that just cheers me on and allows me to be myself 100,000% right, and I just I felt it. I felt that there's people out there that don't have that, or that they have people that sometimes are there for them. And I'm telling you, you need a friend, you need at least one person, one person that you feel safe and secure around. Because I will make another pause right here Self-love, self-acceptance, self-esteem is very, very important.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Do not get me wrong. It is good and it is essential for you to have love for yourself, to spend time with yourself to keep up with yourself, absolutely. But you also need people. We weren't sent here to be alone. You got to find your drive, and I hope that this episode inspires you to look within and just say who are these people that I call my friends? Are they really there for me? And if they're not, what am I willing to do for myself? Like, what am I willing to do to take care of myself and make sure that I'm taking care of my future self, that I'm looking out for that future version of myself that has those friends that support her, love her and push her to be the things that she wants to be? But you might still be struggling to define what a good friend is, right? No worries.

Speaker 1: 7:20

Our second resource is an article by BetterHelp titled what is the Definition of a Good Friend, and, as always, I put all of these resources in the description, but I'm going to summarize it because I think this is such an important lesson for all of us. So, friendship researcher Lydia Denworth. She found that a good friendship is characterized by three core traits. All right, I'm going to read them out loud and then we're going to dissect them. Okay, the first one is stability over time. Second one is positivity in the relationship. And number three is mutual cooperation and support. That means that in order for a friendship to be a friendship, it has to be stable over time, it has got to be positive environment and also there has to be mutual cooperation and support. If it's missing one of the pillars, it's not a friendship, baby.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Okay, I'm sorry that you're finding out this way, but this is how you needed to find out, so that way you can get beautiful friends that are your real, true friends, right? And then I also want to touch on the signs of a healthy friendship. Okay, so they mention five things that shows you that you are in a healthy friendship. The first one is emotional support. Do they support you emotionally when you need them and do you support them emotionally when they need it? That's a very important question.

Speaker 1: 8:53

The second one is good listening. Oh my gosh, I know I can talk because, let me tell you, I know I can talk. I got a gift. But I also know how to listen, and in a friendship, it is very important to know when is your time to listen and when is your time to listen, and in a friendship, it is very important to know when is your time to listen and when is your time to talk. So just make sure that there's good listening happening in your friendships, okay, the third one is enjoyment. Like, do you enjoy spending time with your friends? Because if you're not enjoying spending time with your friends girl, that's the basics that means that something is wrong. And, yeah, you should, you should review this friendship if you're not enjoying it.

Speaker 1: 9:30

The other one is empathy, and I think this one is such an important one. They're all important, but I think empathy is the most important one, and that is because they understand and validate your emotions. My dear passenger, when you're going through a self-growth journey, again, regardless of where you're at, there's a lot of emotions, there's a lot of emotions that come up. There's emotions of unworthiness, there's emotions of sadness, there's emotions of hurt, there's emotions of unworthiness, there's emotions of sadness, there's emotions of hurt, there's emotions of danger or of not feeling safe, like being afraid of change, and all of that right. So you need to have people in your life that allow you to express your emotions and also that they understand what you're going through, like they might not know 100% exactly what you're going through, but they're willing to be there for you, and that's why empathy is such a big one.

Speaker 1: 10:36

And then, last but not least, is forgiveness. Wow, oh my gosh, like I am so blessed that one of my jobs is working with kids, because I get to see friendships being formed and maintained in the most innocent, consistent, funny ways. And forgiveness is so easily given when it's children to children, and I just think that kids know that we're just playing, we're just playing around, you know, and sometimes as adults we take things way too seriously. And I think that forgiveness is such an important aspect of your friendship. And again, if you're not having that in your friendship, I feel for you, I manifest and pray for better friends in your life, because you need somebody that is going to be able to give you at least those five things. And again, this is emotional support, good listening, enjoyment, empathy and forgiveness. If a person cannot give you those five things, they're not your friend.

Speaker 1: 11:50

My dear passenger, this is the moment where I get to share my personal experience with friends. I'm going to be very honest. Like I have the worst abandonment issues when I love you. I love you fully and I love you unconditionally, and I love you so intensely that it can be misconstrued. It can also be misunderstood, it can also be taken advantage of, and over the last couple of years, I've had the, in a way, blessing of having people walk out of my life or forcing people to walk out of my life or cutting them off of my life. And it's so interesting because and I can only speak for myself okay I am such a loving person. I am such a loving person that my love for them doesn't end just because their presence is no longer a part of my daily life. My love for them grows every day, even during the distance, but it grows in the understanding that that person is not meant to be walking alongside me and like again, it's very interesting when you allow yourself to do better for yourself, because at first it hurts a lot and then you get scared and then you say, well, am I taking the right option? Am I being dramatic? Am I being self-sabotaging? You second-guess everything Because it feels different and it feels very scary.

Speaker 1: 14:23

But then comes a point where you get in front of a mirror and you look at yourself and you look at how much you've been suffering because you're holding on to these imaginary reins that are holding the people that you love and you feel like things are going out of control. So you just want to hold on to these imaginary reins. You don't want to miss these people. You don't want to lose them. They've been there before. The thought of losing them, even if they're not 100% perfect, is terrifying.

Speaker 1: 14:55

But then you do let go of the imaginary ropes. And then you had to do all this love and attention from people that have been waiting patiently to become friends to you because they saw the worth in you and they wanted a seat at your table, but it was full. It was full of people that didn't necessarily have the best interest for you, but you did. And then, once you take inventory of who is in your corner but who is actually in your corner, watching for you, praying for you, supporting you You're unstoppable. It hurts, but then you start seeing yourself going up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up up, and then it becomes worth it. So, my dear passenger, I am speaking to you friend to friend. You deserve a support system that wants the best for you. So take inventory of who's in your life and be honest. Who is not there for you? You can be there for them and you can be there in the distance, but they don't need to be right beside you. They don't need to drain your energy, they don't need to drain your motivation. They also don't need to have access to all the things that you're doing because they don't have the best interests. Well, my dear passengers, the time has come for the last stop of the day, that is, recap time.

Speaker 1: 17:17

Today's episode discuss friendships, which we now know mean the state of being friends. We now know that friendships can help us with our mental and physical well-being, and that's because friendships allow us to lower our stress levels, also watch out with our heart disease and, last but not least, help us report higher levels of satisfaction with life. That friendships have three core traits. That is, stability over time, positivity in their relationship and mutual cooperation and support. Last but not least, there's five signs of a healthy friendship. That means that if anybody in the friendship is doing this, it's a good sign that it is a healthy friendship. And that is emotional support, good listening, enjoyment, empathy and forgiveness.

Speaker 1: 18:14

Remember, self-growth is an endless journey towards self-improvement. However, you don't ever have to do it alone. As your tour guide, my goal is to guide you with the best intentions and the best research available. Make sure to follow me on Instagram, tiktok and Facebook at the Self-Girl Train Podcast, and to look at my new website, theselfgirltrainpodcastcom. As always, all of the resources used today have been added to the episode's descriptions. Well, until the next time, dear passengers, safe travels. Bye.