A therapist and mother of five asks Karamo how to maintain friendships with a packed schedule. Karamo says friendship is a two-way street: if friends won't meet you halfway or reciprocate effort, it's okay to let them go.
Okay, so first of all, Karamo, I'm a licensed therapist.
Yes.
I'm a mother of 5 and I'm a wife.
Yes.
And so my schedule is pretty busy and basically my question for you, I wanna be able to be a better friend. My friends, a lot of my friends have been complaining that I don't support them and I'm starting to realize for me, it's not, I love them and I feel like being a good friend is just showing up when it's important. Like if somebody dies, if somebody's sick.
Yeah.
The things that are important to them are just not important to me. And so how can I be more intentional about being a better friend regarding like things I don't care about?
Well, I first of all gotta say that I think that friendship is a two-way street just like any relationship. And I think that the same way that you're being thoughtful about how to be a better friend for them, they should be thinking that same thing about you. And the reason I say that is because when I hear about your life from what you described, being a therapist, I understand what it is to take on other people's trauma trauma, to take on other people's issues daily. That's a lot. It's heavy. So that's the first thing. Also, you're a mother. You're also, which means you have to tend to your kids. Also, you're a wife. And then with all those things, you still gotta tend to you and you still gotta figure out how to spend time for you and do things for you. And so it's sometimes selfish for someone else to say, well, listen, I don't have all those responsibilities and I need you to now talk about the one thing that I do have responsibility about or the one thing that's important to me. Like, I get it, girl. And this is why I say a two-way sheet is important because it's like, are you also looking at what I have to deal with? Because if you understood what I was going through, you would say, you know what, let's figure out a time where we can both feel like, okay, I can be calm, you can be calm. And I think that maybe having a new conversation about how can we meet each other in the halfway so that I can understand what's a priority for you, you can understand what's a priority for me, and we can match those priorities on certain days. Because I don't want you to put all this pressure on yourself. Because what I just heard was, let me put pressure on myself to figure out how I can show up for one more person. And even in that list that you gave me, I still didn't hear you showing up for yourself. So I'm gonna show up for kids, I'm gonna show up for family, I'm gonna show up for my husband, I'm gonna show up for work, and now I'm gonna show up for friends.
You got it.
Yeah, and so have that conversation. If they're really your friends, they're gonna say, all right, I hear you, I understand what you're going through, and I'm gonna try to meet you halfway because you're willing to meet them halfway. And that's a true friendship. And if they're not willing to have that conversation, let them go because you don't need to put more on your plate.
Thank you, Karamo.
You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. I love a Q and K. That was a good time. Did y'all get something outta that? So listen, we have fun in my studio audience. Trust me, during the commercial breaks, we've been in here dancing, having a good time. Join us here in the studio. You bring the Qs, I'll keep bringing the Ks.
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